Haunted
by Seeking Idlewild
Summary: While hiding in an Asgardian prison cell, Loki finds himself conversing with the ghost of one of his victims. Meanwhile, Tony Stark is still haunted by a few metaphorical ghosts of his own. The two former adversaries must form an uneasy alliance to save each other and their realms from a looming threat. (NOTE: This fic is incomplete, and no further updates are planned.)
1. Chapter 1: Ghost in the Cell

**This fic takes place after the end of _The Avengers_, and it will contain many spoilers both for that movie and for the rest of the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies. Definitely don't read this unless you have seen those movies first.**

**Also, I'm only going to mention this once since it really goes without saying anyway. I don't own any of the Marvel canon characters, or the MCU, or anything. **

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Thor had finally ceased to visit his prison, and Loki was glad of it.

Not that it hadn't been amusing to watch his earnest "brother's" heart break anew with each passing day as he sought to reclaim Loki's soul from the dark depths of depravity with a mixture of edifying speeches, coaxing words, and nostalgia. Seeing the grief in Thor's eyes always soothed Loki. It acted as a temporary balm to cover his twisting anger and clawing fear. It was a good day when Thor left Loki's cell in a state of greater torment than Loki's own. But eventually that torment had grown too great even for Thor to endure, and he had left Loki in peace. Loki was not certain how long it had been since Thor's last visit; the hours, days, and weeks all seemed to run together now that he sat alone in his cell.

This cell, designed especially to bind all forms of magic possessed by its occupants, had not been constructed with Loki in mind. Even Odin, in all his wisdom, had not foreseen the day when he would imprison his own adopted son within this dim, airless little chamber. But Loki did not care about the stuffiness, the silence, the chill, or the loneliness. What he hated was the stifling pressure, like a physical weight across his shoulder and on his chest, which held his magic in check. For the first few weeks, that restriction upon his magic had merely been uncomfortable. Then it had become dizzying, disorienting. Now, it maddened him.

Much of the time, Loki wasn't even aware of the stone walls around him or the hard floor upon which he sat. He drifted in his own mind until he could not tell his thoughts from reality. Hallucinations swam before his eyes, and voices out of memory whispered in his ears. Sometimes a black void swallowed up the whole room and Loki fell again, and fell, and fell, until he could not remember a time when his feet had touched solid ground and his eyes had beheld anything but an unwholesome darkness thick with invisible yet unspeakable horrors.

At other times he found himself standing in a large room in a high tower where one weaponless mortal recklessly defied him. _There's no throne. There's no version of this where you come out on top_, the hallucination repeated again and again. As if Loki hadn't been aware of that unpalatable fact from the first moment he fell into the clutches of the Chitauri and Thanos.

Often he heard the whispered threats of the Other ringing in his ears. Threats which made the posturing of one mortal, even one so intriguing as Tony Stark, seem pathetic by comparison. Threats which made Loki grateful for this Asgardian prison which provided at least a temporary sense of safety from a being who had destroyed galaxies for the sheer joy of it.

_If you fail, if the Tesseract is kept from us, there will be no realm, no barren moon, no crevice where he cannot find you. You think you know pain? He will make you long for something as sweet as pain._

But while the Other's threats kept him awake and reminded him of what fear truly meant, one voice tormented him more than any other. One simple phrase haunted him: _You lack conviction. _Those three words had defined him; in a moment of horrifying clarity, Loki had recognized their truth. And now, alone with his thoughts, the god of lies could not escape that one bitter truth.

_You lack conviction. _If anything captured the essence of Loki Laufeyson since the revelation of his monstrous parentage it was those three words, uttered by a dying mortal. None of Loki's recent acts had been planned with his usual finesse. He had lost control. He had lost his center. He had lost his focus. He had acted first in blind hatred, and then in choking fear.

When he had taken over the throne of Asgard, Fate had seemed his friend. He had accepted the opportunities as they arose: Thor's banishment, Odin's collapse, and Frigga's well-meant observation that Loki was the only Odinson left to take the sleeping king's place on the throne. He had not planned for all of these eventualities; his initial plan was simply to keep his brother from ascending to the throne when it was clear to everyone but his besotted father that Thor was not yet ready to rule. He had stumbled into the role of king shortly after stumbling upon the knowledge of his heritage, and the combination of those two unanticipated events had fueled his plans thereafter. He had been blinded by rage. He had been stupid. He had lacked conviction.

His efforts to obliterate his heritage and establish his place as Odin's most dutiful son had come to ruin. Odin had rejected him. So Loki had fallen from the rainbow bridge, fully intending to die. But fickle Fate was not so merciful. He had fallen until time had become meaningless to him. Until he had forgotten how to speak. Until he had forgotten his own name. By the time Loki fell into the clutches of the Other and his even more formidable master, it had been easy for them to draw out Loki's secrets. The void had cracked open Loki's mind like a nut. Thanos merely had to sift through the pieces and select the knowledge that he wanted. Torture hadn't even been necessary, although it had served to rouse Loki's numbed consciousness and remind him how to scream.

The Other had offered Loki a bargain, and Loki had accepted it. Thanos had gifted him with a scepter, and Loki had accepted that as well. It had almost seemed as if Fate was on his side again, but he had known better. Loki had formulated his plans, had set them in motion, and had enjoyed watching the realm his "brother" loved fall prey to chaos. But his minor victories had felt hollow. So he had seized the opportunity to face Earth's finest warriors in person, because he had wanted to gloat. He had _needed_ to experience the satisfaction that would only come from watching their pathetic plans fall apart under his own eyes. But while he had sneered at the humans' inferiority, he had been eaten up with the knowledge that his army and much of his own strength were borrowed. He had lacked real power. He had lacked true purpose. He had lacked conviction.

And one mortal had spotted that fact. A mortal with bland, ordinary features, unassuming garb, and a singularly unimpressive name. What had his name been? Clint Barton had mentioned the man once while he was in Loki's thrall. He had said the man was a good agent. One of the best, in fact. The man had been thoroughly unremarkable in appearance, which had led most people to underestimate him. His name had been as ordinary as his face. Ah, yes…

"Coulson."

As Loki spoke the name aloud, almost startling himself with the sound of his own voice after sitting in silence for so long, the image of the agent flickered into focus before his eyes. His black suit was immaculate, his posture erect, and his hands clasped before him. His mouth curved into the barest hint of a smile, but otherwise his expression was bland. Loki pondered the image, having to crane his neck to look up at it from where he sat on the stone floor with his back to the wall. The human looked back at him thoughtfully for a few minutes. Then, unexpectedly, he spoke.

"You called?" Coulson's voice was dry, as if he were making some joke only he would understand.

Loki blinked once, then again. None of his previous hallucinations had responded to him. When they had spoken, they had always simply repeated words from his memories. But this was no memory. This was something different, and Loki couldn't help wondering if it was a sign that he had finally descended into utter madness. If so, the release from reality would be welcome.

There was a long pause. Clearly the human did not expect a reply to his question. He continued to peer down at Loki with eyes that gave away none of his thoughts. Finally he spoke again, sounding more as if he were talking to himself than to Loki. "You don't look how I remembered. I don't know whether it's because you're sitting, or because you're not wearing your armor, but you seem…" he tilted his head slightly, and that little flicker of a smile grew wider, "Smaller."

There was no way Loki was going to let _that_ comment pass without a response. He smiled up at the human, displaying his teeth, and whispered silkily, "Ah, yes. But appearances can be so deceiving, can't they, Agent?"

The effect his words had on the human was almost comical. Coulson's whole expression changed. He looked… shocked. It was odd to see so much emotion suddenly displayed on that usually mask-like face. "You can hear me?" the agent rasped. "You can _see_ me?"

Well, that was rather unexpected. For the first time, it occurred to Loki that this was no hallucination after all.

"I can," he said. "Am I not meant to?"

"No one else has. You're the first," Coulson said. He had regained much of his composure, but his eyes were still a bit widened. He stared down at Loki with a strange intensity. His expression was almost… hungry. Starved for interaction of any kind, perhaps. Loki knew the feeling.

"You're dead," Loki felt he should point out.

"Yeah," Coulson replied pointedly, "I remember."

"In my defense, you _were_ aiming a rather large gun at me."

"True," the agent said, his lips curving into a little reminiscent smile. "I liked that gun."

Loki showed his teeth in another fierce, humorless smile. He did _not_ have particularly fond memories of that gun. That blast had _hurt_. "So, if I am truly experiencing a ghostly visitation rather than a hallucination, perhaps you can tell me what your purpose is here. You should know that I don't usually make a habit of conversing with the dead. In fact, I cannot recall ever having done so before. I wonder if this is Odin's idea of a punishment for me. If so, he has sorely missed his mark."

Coulson shook his head. "I don't think so. I've been like this since I… since it happened. Almost six months. No one has been able to see before now. I seem to move from place to place more or less at random; usually places I've been to before, but not always. I don't have any control over it, which is…" He paused, suddenly distracted by his surroundings. He took in the dim prison cell with a slight frown. "Wait, is this Asgard?"

"One wretched little bit of it, yes."

"Ah. That's… huh." The agent blinked once.

"Not impressed?" Loki asked.

"I guess it's good enough for you," Coulson replied with a bland little smile.

"I've known worse cages," Loki acknowledged, refusing to render himself more pathetic by reacting to the petty insult of a ghost. "This one is merely boring and uncomfortable."

"I'm actually surprised that you don't have a plan to get out of here yet," the human said, his smile turning vaguely mocking.

Ah, so the little mortal was actively trying to get a rise out of him. He was literally interrogating Loki from beyond the grave. How amusing.

"What leads you to suppose that I have not?" Loki asked, deciding to play along.

"You're still here after almost six months."

"Perhaps that is precisely where I wish to be, at present," Loki suggested. "Perhaps, incommodious as it is, I prefer this little room to the alternative."

Something briefly flickered in Coulson's eyes. It was the merest momentary break in his placid mask, but Loki saw it and grew more alert. Here in this bleak cell with him was the ghost of a man with a far more intimate knowledge of the inner workings of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Avengers Initiative than ever Agent Barton had possessed. Loki's mind, made sluggish by months of solitude, the restriction on his magic, and the ever-gnawing dread of discovery by Thanos, began to rouse itself. He could turn this to good account. He could start _doing_ something to extricate himself from his position of dire weakness.

"You know, I always thought you were just the messenger," Coulson said quietly, breaking into Loki's train of thought.

"Not precisely. I was your reprieve from a fate far worse than subjugation," Loki replied, a slow, ghastly smile spreading across his face as he peered up at the spirit. "There is a creature coming to your world who will make your people long for the protection of my rule. Chaos is my element, but his is _annihilation._"

Agent Coulson's eyes narrowed slightly. He pursed his lips, making a soft humming noise as he considered Loki's words. He seemed interested rather than concerned by Loki's obvious fear of the being in question. Loki had never longed for the gift of telepathy; he had always favored subtler forms of manipulation. But right at this moment, he would dearly have liked to have known what the agent was thinking. The man looked like he was contemplating what to eat for breakfast rather than the potential destruction of his world.

"He's the one you were going to give the Tesseract to, isn't he?" Coulson finally asked.

"I see there is more going on behind that vapid expression than one might suppose," Loki hissed impatiently.

Coulson's lips twitched. "Does this annihilator have a name?"

"I cannot speak it. I try not even to think it," Loki said, deciding to resort to brutal honesty for once, as much as he despised the display of weakness. Who was this disembodied spirit going to tell, after all? "He has rummaged through nearly every corner of my mind; he knows it intimately, inside and out. He has influenced my thoughts before. Now that I have failed him, I fear he will latch on completely, ruling my mind as I ruled Agent Barton's. I cannot risk drawing his attention by uttering his name. Do you begin to comprehend?"

A expression of satisfaction washed over Coulson's features. "You're hiding from him," he said, stating the obvious with the clear intention of goading Loki.

Loki huffed out a soft, bitter laugh. He was not surprised that the mortal found that information deeply pleasing. Still, hiding was hardly a shameful act to him. Indeed, the position felt all too familiar. "The seal upon this chamber which binds my magic also keeps other magics out," he explained. "While I could undoubtedly work my way around the binding given time, I am reluctant to breach a barrier which is keeping my mind intact and wholly my own."

Coulson nodded. He was gazing off into space now, not looking at Loki. "Why would this person want to destroy Earth now? The Tesseract is in Asgard."

"Isn't it obvious? Surely, if you have been lurking about on Midgard for the past six months, you are aware that Tony Stark threw a missile through the portal and destroyed the entire Chitauri fleet. Your Avengers issued an unmistakable challenge to one who views genocide as a diverting pastime. You think he will not respond? He will obliterate your world. It will be a game to him; a bit of sport. And then he will turn his attention to Asgard. Believe me, I know this creature better than most. I served him. I was tutored by him. I know that of which I speak."

Agent Coulson finally looked a little shaken. He began to pace about the small room slowly, his insubstantial shoes making no sound. Loki leaned his head back against the stone wall, folded his hands in his lap, and observed the human. He had given up pacing weeks ago. There was no point to the exertion. There was no point to anything, much. He felt his head beginning to swim, the lurking madness starting to take hold again. Thanos's image appeared before him, as large as life, and for a moment he expected it to start speaking to him as Coulson's ghost had done. When it only leered at him with that death's head grin, Loki mirrored the expression in response.

A hysterical laugh escaped him, startling Coulson mid-stride. The human turned back to him, both brows lifted. "You find something funny?" he asked sharply. It was the most emotion Loki had heard in his voice thus far, and he focused his attention on it. Thanos's image flickered once and then disappeared.

Loki continued to smile, even though he knew he must appear crazed. It seemed appropriate. He _was_ a bit crazed. "You must confess, there is certain delicious irony to the situations in which we find ourselves," he pointed out with another, more restrained chuckle. "Here we are, a ghost and his murderer, calmly discussing the ends to both our realms. And neither of us are in a position to influence the events at all. You, because you have no substance and are invisible to all but me. I, because I dare not even attempt to escape my prison for fear of being compromised and pressed into the service of the very enemy I wish to see defeated."

Coulson jerked his head in a swift motion of dissent. "No. I know there has to be something we can do. Something _I_ can do, at least. There is some reason why I'm still here; some mission I haven't completed yet. I don't know what it is yet, but I can feel it nagging at me. I'll figure it out eventually."

"Such _conviction_, Agent," Loki whispered mockingly.

Coulson's lips quirked into that almost-smile that he often wore. He gave Loki a knowing look. "That's right. Have you found yours yet?"

Loki's smile froze and cracked. He covered it up by glancing down at his hands. He made a show of examining his blunt fingernails for a moment. By the time he lifted his eyes again, the mocking expression was firmly back in place. However, his audience had returned to his methodical pacing with his hands clasped firmly behind his back.

"Let's start with you, since you're the only one of us who can interact with the rest of the world anyway. The real obstacle you're dealing with is not getting out of this prison cell, but rather the mind control issue," Coulson mused aloud. "You don't know any spells that can block a mental attack?"

"I told you, he has been inside my mind before. He also taught me many new magical arts that I previously had no knowledge of. He is fully aware of what I am capable of and he will find ways to work around it." He paused, narrowing his eyes thoughtfully at Coulson. "Don't tell me that _you_, of all people, wish to see me escape from my prison."

Coulson's shoulders rose and fell in a brief shrug. "That would be preferable to seeing you working on this other guy's side, yeah," he replied. "Don't get me wrong; I don't think you have anyone else's best interest at heart and you probably never will. But I think it will serve _your _interests to stop this creature. Even if you don't care about Earth, I think you care what happens to Asgard." He paused, sending a searching look in Loki's direction. Whatever he saw in Loki's face seemed to reassure him, because he gave a curt nod and continued. "I don't think you want to be anyone's puppet, either. And since you admitted yourself that you know this guy, and you've even trained under him, then you probably know better than anyone else how he can be defeated."

Loki could have told Agent Coulson that he had not the faintest notion how to go about defeating Thanos, but he rather liked the direction in which this conversation was headed and did not want to interfere with Coulson's train of thought now. After all, it was true that if Loki could escape this cell safely, the first thing he would do would be to prepare for Thanos's inevitable arrival in this corner of the universe. Well, maybe not the _very_ first thing. A certain Midgardian engineer had offered him a drink once, and Loki would be damned if he didn't collect.

The recollection of that conversation with Tony Stark brought with it another memory. In the course of their brief discussion, Loki had come to the conclusion that he wanted to have that man in his service. Stark was… amusing. But his attempt to take control of Stark's mind had failed. He remembered gathering energy from the Tesseract shard in the scepter and _pushing_ it towards Stark's heart. He remembered the soft "chink" of metal against metal as the tip of the scepter met with the device in Stark's chest. He remembered the brief flare of power within the crystal before it suddenly flickered out.

Loki's head jerked up suddenly. "I am a fool," he spat, "I am a blithering _idiot_."

Coulson stopped in his tracks and stared at Loki as if stunned. "Somehow, I never expected to hear that coming from you," he commented.

"Shut up!" Loki said. Then he immediately contradicted that order with another. "That metal in Tony Stark's chest. The device which glows blue. Tell me what it is."

Coulson's expression shuttered immediately. Interesting. "Why?"

"I believe it had something to do with why I could not take control of Stark's mind," Loki explained impatiently. "Tell me everything you know about it."

The agent's brows drew together slightly, but his expression was still carefully guarded. "I overheard Stark mention it when I was – well, as you put it, _lurking_ – in Stark Tower a few weeks after the incident. He was telling Ms. Potts that the… that it blocked your scepter."

"Not _blocked_, you fool," Loki snapped, making no effort to rein in his irritation. "If a mere physical barrier were enough to block the spell, then anyone wearing armor would be immune to its effects. That would be worthless. I believe Stark's device _interfered_ with the scepter's power."

Light dawned in Agent Coulson's face. Clearly he knew enough about Stark's glowing device to make a few connections that Loki was not privy too. In his impatience, Loki pushed himself to his feet, looming over the shorter ghost as if he could somehow intimidate him, which was admittedly laughable. Loki had not intimidated him even when Coulson had still lived. He certainly wasn't going to intimidate Coulson's ghost.

"_Tell me_," Loki hissed.

The human met his eyes with a steady, calculating gaze. Loki suspected that he was in the middle of a rapid risk-versus-reward analysis. Apparently the mystery surrounding Stark's device was more important than Loki had suspected, and Agent Coulson was reluctant to give Loki any knowledge that could later be used against Stark or S.H.I.E.L.D. It was reassuring, in a way, to know the limits of the agent's willingness to trust him. It helped confirm that this was real; he really was talking to the ghost of a human S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, not some hallucination taunting him with false hopes of collaboration and freedom. If there was one thing he had learned in recent years, it was that Fate was _not_ his friend. Anything that came too easily was suspect.

It was time to start reining in his impatience. Months spent in isolation had tarnished Loki's silver tongue, but he could try for a little tact, at least. "I am not asking for schematics, Agent," Loki said, softening his tone. "Nor am I looking to exploit Tony Stark's technology to use against him or any other human." … _At this time_, he added silently. But he might as well have voiced that thought aloud. Judging by Coulson's vaguely sardonic expression, he was making a similar mental note. The human was nobody's fool. "I have far greater matters to attend to when I gain my freedom," Loki continued smoothly. "I simply want to know why Stark's device was able to deflect the scepter's power, and whether a similar device may shield against other forms of mind control."

"I can't answer either of those questions," Coulson said, apparently deciding to trust Loki a little further. "I can only give you the basics as far as I understand them, which is, admittedly, not very far."

Coulson paused, and Loki waved him on with an airy flick of his hand. The human lifted his shoulders in one of his characteristic shrugs and continued. "The device is an arc reactor, much like the one that powers Stark Tower, only in miniature. You know about the reactor, right? From what I've picked up in the past six months, it sounds like you harnessed its energy to open the portal over Manhattan."

Ah, yes. The clean energy source that was Tony Stark's pride and joy. How much fun it had been to use Stark's toy to launch an invasion. Loki suspected that even Tony Stark had been able to appreciate the irony of it.

"I seem to recall that, yes," Loki said, not even attempting to repress his reminiscent smile. "But I fail to understand why Stark would place such a device in his chest. It cannot have been a comfortable procedure."

Coulson grimaced slightly. "I imagine not. It probably makes a great flashlight, though. Oh, and it powers the Iron Man suit, of course," he added, as if that were an afterthought. "It also contains an electromagnet. I don't know if that could have had anything to do with its effect on your spell."

Loki mulled over this for a moment, frowning slightly. "And what is the purpose of the electromagnet?"

No response from Coulson. The agent simply smiled tolerantly at Loki. More secrets, more mystery. It was tantalizing to Loki, who had always been one to obsessively seek after hidden knowledge. But as the ghost was not forthcoming on this subject, Loki decided to try a different angle.

"Very well, then. What is the reactor made of?" he asked. "The materials Stark used in its design could have played a role in its effect on the scepter's power. Magic responds to different substances in very different ways."

Coulson gave another of his light shrugs. He made it look more like a slight adjustment of his shoulders rather than a gesture meant to convey meaning. "I don't have that information. It's not exactly my area of expertise. What I can tell you, though, is that Stark had to basically invent a new element in order to perfect the design and keep it from slowly poisoning him. The element hasn't undergone much testing, considering that the only known sample of it is in Stark's chest."

Loki glanced down at the bare stone floor, his brows drawing together in thought. Stark invented new element. Of course he did. The human lived up to his reputation as a genius. Loki would have never guessed that mortals had the potential to surprise him, but both Coulson and Stark were rapidly proving him wrong.

"Is there anything else you can tell me?" he asked without lifting his head from his perusal of the black stones under his feet. He wasn't really seeing them; instead, the scene in Stark Tower was unfolding before his eyes once again. That mad mortal, striding into the room with nothing but an arc reactor and a healthy dose of bravado between him and the enhanced power of an ancient god. Definitely intriguing.

"Not really," Coulson replied, breaking into his recollections. Loki lifted his head to find the ghost looking at him expectantly. "So, what have we accomplished here, exactly? What is your next step?"

"Why, I must pay a visit to Tony Stark, of course," Loki said, his lips curving into a sly smile of anticipation.

"How?" Coulson asked. "I thought you couldn't break the magic-binding seal on this room without exposing yourself to that creature you mentioned."

"I won't break it," Loki assured him. "Not yet. Not until Tony Stark has finished building my new device. I'll only… put a few cracks in it."

Coulson's only reaction to that comment was to tilt his head to one side curiously.

Loki sank back to the floor and resumed his former position. With his back against the stone wall and his legs folded before him, he focused his mind on the tightly woven enchantment which bound his magic. He flashed his teeth in a wide grin. Did Odin really think this pathetic excuse for a seal could hold him here against his will? Truly, the king of Asgard was a fool. Uttering a low laugh, Loki set to work.

"Trust me, Agent," he said. "I know precisely what I am doing."

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**Thanks for reading! Please leave a review to let me know how I'm doing so far.**


	2. Chapter 2: A Break-up and a Breakdown

**Thank you all for your wonderful reviews! I was very pleasantly surprised by the feedback I got for chapter one. Note that I am not a particularly speedy writer, but I will try to update this fic on a biweekly basis.**

**Since Tony is making his first appearance in this chapter, I should probably point out now that my take on Tony is heavily influenced by the dark tone of the **_**Iron Man 3**_** teaser trailer. My Tony will be slighter broodier and less wisecracky than you might be used to.**

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The sun was setting behind the city skyline as Tony approached the large bank of windows which comprised one entire wall of the room. He noticed it only in passing, thinking briefly how much better it would have looked from his house in Malibu. Not that he usually took time to notice things like sunsets in Malibu, either. But considering how much he _didn't_ want to be in New York right now, everything about Stark Tower compared unfavorably to his west coast sanctuary.

Behind him, there was a hissing sound as the elevator doors opened. JARVIS had not announced the visitor, so there were only a handful of people it could be. The AI didn't let anyone sneak up on Tony unless it was for his own good. So, either Rhodey or Pepper. As far as Tony knew – not that he had really kept track of his friends' whereabouts recently (or, really, ever) – Rhodey was still on the west coast. So, Pepper, then.

"You know, I had a bet with myself that you wouldn't even show up tonight," came Pepper's pleasant voice from behind him. He heard the click of her heels across the floor, then the chink of glass as she did something at the bar. Suddenly, he felt an overwhelming need for a drink.

Turning, he found Pepper pouring two drinks at the bar. Wine for her, scotch for him. All at once, it struck Tony how much he had missed her. How long had it been since he had seen her wearing that particular smile on her lips, or since he had noticed that particular sparkle of humor in her eyes? But he knew how long. It was almost exactly six months now since that evening visit from Agent Coulson had disrupted the relative peace of their lives with news of the theft of the Tesseract. The world had looked different after that.

Tony realized that Pepper was looking at him expectantly, waiting for him to acknowledge her comment. He approached the bar, trying to paste a welcoming smile on his face but feeling that it probably wasn't his best effort. "I remember a threat involving gonads and pointy objects if I didn't show up for the board meeting tomorrow," he reminded her.

She smirked, pushing the glass of scotch across the bar towards him. "Yes, but I half expected you to fly into the middle of the meeting tomorrow all suited up. God knows the world has seen a lot more of Iron Man than Tony Stark recently."

Tony covered his wince by picking up the glass taking a long gulp of scotch. "Yeah, about that…"

"Tony," Pepper interrupted. Her voice had softened, and she was looking at him earnestly now. Tony took that as a very bad sign. It was never a good sign when your girlfriend looked at you with that particular expression of pity in her eyes.

So this was happening now. Tony had been pretty sure that there were two reasons why he had been summoned to New York today. The board meeting had been a good excuse, but he could tell that Pepper had also wanted this chance to talk to him face to face. He could guess what this was about. He wasn't great at all this emotional stuff, but he wasn't a genius for nothing. Their relationship had been dying a slow death for a while, and Pepper was obviously ready to perform the last rites and move on.

Tony could have been selfish and ignored Pepper's unspoken request for resolution. He could have shown up to the meeting tomorrow and dashed off again the moment it was over. He had done that sort of thing often enough in the past six months. But this time he could tell that Pepper's patience had run out, and he didn't blame her. He had been a truly horrendous boyfriend to her. Still, some selfish part of him wanted to cling to this faded parody of love, which at its peak had been one of the brightest, most meaningful parts of his life.

"Wait," Tony said, desperately trying to stave off the inevitable. "I know what you're going to say, Pepper. I just need more time."

"For what, Tony?" Pepper asked. "What am I waiting for, exactly? If you would open up to me and just _tell _me what is going through your head, then maybe I would be able to help, or at least understand. I've tried to be accommodating, but I can't do this anymore. Whatever you've been going through for the past six months, this… _obsession_ of yours, the weeks without sleeping, forgetting to eat, skipping out on events and meetings, ignoring the people who care about you…" her voice trailed off, and she pushed away from the bar with a soft sigh. Tony watched her cross the room, making for the place in front of the windows where he had been standing when she arrived. "You shut me out, Tony," she murmured, staring out the window at the fading light. Her voice sounded raw, and her fingers spasmed where they clenched around the stem of her wine glass. "I always knew that I had to share you with Iron Man; I made peace with that a long time ago. But now it feels like Tony Stark has disappeared and Iron Man is the only thing left. And I didn't fall in love with Iron Man."

Tony opened his mouth to reply. To say _something_. To defend himself, perhaps, or to remind her of the fact that the old Tony Stark had been notorious for all the behaviors she had just listed. But all he finally came up with was, "I know."

Pepper let out a soft, self-deprecating laugh and looked back at him over her shoulder. "I didn't mean to start this conversation off like that. I'm sorry." She held her hand out to him, and he found himself drifting across the room to join her in front of the window. He didn't take her hand, and she let it fall back to her side without comment.

"How were you planning to start the conversation?" he asked, taking another sip of scotch.

"I was going to ask you how you've been."

Tony had to laugh at that. The sound rang out with its old strength, but it was tinged with a new note of bitterness. Tony didn't like how that laugh sounded. There was something sharp about it, like the sound of breaking glass.

"Oh, you know," he said, plastering a false grin to his face. "I've been keeping pretty busy. Being a genius, saving the world, that sort of thing."

"Any time in that busy schedule to maybe try to save your company?" Pepper asked, tilting her head and lifting an inquiring eyebrow. "Rumors are going around that you actually died last summer and that we've hired a double for the handful of times you've appeared in public since then."

Tony laughed again, and this time he sounded a bit more like his old self. "Seriously? Who would you hire to stand in for me? Can it be Johnny Depp? Oh please, let it be Johnny Depp."

"He looks nothing like you," Pepper said, momentarily distracted.

"He could totally be me. He can be anything."

"Tony-"

"Come on, Pepper. This is ridiculous," Tony interrupted, "The company is doing fine. If anyone but a few crackpots really thought I was dead, our stock would be in the toilet, and it isn't. If anything, investors probably think I've finally matured or something."

"Or something," Pepper echoed irritably.

"I'm pretty sure Stark Industries is safe for the time being," Tony said.

"Okay, so then what about the rest of the world?" Pepper asked. "Does it _really_ need to be saved, and by you? Or is that just what you tell yourself because you don't know what else to do with yourself right now?"

Apparently they were back on this. That hadn't taken long. Tony grunted and finished off the rest of his scotch in one gulp.

"Every time I turn around these days, Iron Man is in the newspaper again," Pepper said. "If you're not shut away in Malibu working on god-knows-what, you're out there trying to solve all the world's problems with technology and brute force. It's like you're actively searching for danger to throw yourself into. Not every battle is yours to fight, you know."

"I know that," Tony said, more sharply than he meant to. He let out a long breath and lifted his hand to rub at his temples with his thumb and forefinger. The headache which had been lurking at the edges of his awareness for hours was now making its presence felt. "I know," he said again, and to his disgust, he realized that his tone sounded almost pleading. "It's not about that."

Pepper turned toward him fully, resting one shoulder against the window. He rather wished she wouldn't put her weight on that particular window. It had been replaced since Loki had sent him flying through it six months ago, but the associations still weren't pleasant.

"That's what I think too," Pepper said slowly, distracting him from is unpleasant train of thought. She was still looking at him with that earnest, thoughtful expression. He _hated_ it when she looked at him like that. He hated feeling like he was some broken thing that she was contemplating how to fix. "It's not about that. It's about New York, isn't it? It's been six months, but you're still fighting that battle over and over again in your head. Why can't you let it go, Tony? You survived. You won. It's over."

Over. She thought it was over.

For at least the hundredth time in the last six months, Loki's parting words replayed themselves over in Tony's head. _You think this is over now, but the war for Midgard's future has only just begun. Enjoy your fragile victory while you can, Stark. What you saw beyond the portal is only a small taste of things to come_. Loki had said those words just before Thor had muzzled him. Tony could still clearly remember the look in Loki's eyes at that moment. He hadn't looked defiant or embittered by his defeat. He had looked weary. He had looked rueful. He had looked like a prophet foretelling catastrophes and knowing his warnings would fall on deaf ears.

No one else had taken the threat very seriously. Thor had fitted the barbaric-looking muzzle over Loki's mouth, unnecessarily commanding him to "cease your lies." The other Avengers had simply looked contemptuous. But none of them had seen what Tony had seen through the portal. He might have had the satisfaction of watching the Chitauri mothership explode, but not before he had gotten a good look at it and realized how advanced and how alien those creatures and their technology truly were. Were there more of them out there somewhere, as Loki had suggested? Was there something even worse lurking out there, just biding its time before launching an attack on an unsuspecting earth? Would the Avengers be enough next time? Would _he_ be enough?

"It's never over," he said finally, his voice low and tight. He turned towards Pepper, looking her directly in the eyes. She recoiled at whatever she saw in his expression. "That's the _point_. There's always another threat. There's always a bigger, badder asshole out there just waiting to take a shot at a weak target. We have to be ready. _I _have to be ready, Pepper. I am _going_ to be ready."

Pepper studied his face for a long, uncomfortable moment. Then she took a sip from her glass and turned her gaze back towards the window. "And meanwhile, you're just going to let life go on without you," she murmured.

"I have a life, Pepper. This is my life," Tony insisted.

"Well, it isn't mine," she murmured, reaching up to splay her fingertips against the window. Her expression was distant, and Tony realized that her thoughts had already moved on, beyond this discussion. She was standing right next to him, but she had already left him behind. It was a weird, unfamiliar feeling.

"There's someone else," he realized.

Pepper shrugged, still not turning her gaze from the window. "Not officially. Nothing has been said or done yet, but yes. Yes, there is someone. He makes me smile, Tony. It's been a while since I had that."

Tony winced and turned away, striding back to the bar. He yanked the stopper out of the scotch bottle and refilled his glass. "So who is this guy? Do I know him?" _Is he good enough for you?_

"You wouldn't. He's from legal."

Tony set the scotch bottle down on the bar with a resounding _thunk_. "Jesus, Pepper. You're dating a damn lawyer? Those guys are crooks. Or spies. Remember last time we got someone in from legal? Just say no."

Pepper snorted. She walked back towards the bar, taking a fortifying sip of wine before saying in a soothing tone, "I'm not dating anyone yet, and I'm pretty sure Brent is not an undercover S.H.I.E.L.D. agent."

"You can never be too sure," Tony chided. "Have you done a background check on him yet? You'd better let me-"

"Oh, no you don't, Tony," Pepper cut in hastily. "Don't even think about it. I haven't even had coffee with the guy yet. Don't get all protective now, especially since you've been happy to completely forget my existence for the past few months.

Tony turned away to hide his grimace of shame. Pepper must have interpreted the motion correctly, because she softened her tone as she continued, "I just like him. I want to get to know him."

"Brent," Tony muttered. "Sounds like a tool."

"Because his name is Brent?"

"I don't know. It's just that kind of name."

Pepper snorted and swatted Tony' s arm. "He's nice."

"And I'm not nice? I can be nice!"

Pepper just shot him a speaking look.

"Oh, fine," he groused. "Does 'Brent' have a last name?"

"It's Caldwell," Pepper said. Then she shook her head in self-reproach. "Only, I shouldn't have told you that, because now you're going to go digging for dirt on him."

"I would have done that anyway," Tony reassured her. "The guy works for my company. I could've found out his name. Date of birth. Social security number. How he likes his coffee. What he did last summer-"

"Tony."

"I'll be good!" he promised, flashing her a fake innocent smile.

She sighed. "No, you won't."

"No, I won't."

Pepper shook her head, then set her wine glass down on the bar. She glanced towards the elevator doors, signaling that the conversation was drawing to a close. "I should probably head home. Unlike some people who may or may not show up to their meeting on time tomorrow, I have to be at the office early in the morning."

"I'll be there. Promise," Tony said soothingly, setting his glass down beside hers and coming up beside her. She smiled wearily up at him as he reached out to rub her shoulder. "About the rest of it… I screwed up, and I know it, and I can't fix it. I hope things work out with this Brent guy. Maybe he won't put you through all the shit that I did. I'm surprised you've stuck with me this long, honestly." He offered her another travesty of a smile. It felt like his face was splitting open.

Pepper was giving him that earnest, pitying look again. Tony really did hate that look. "Worrying about you… caring about you… it isn't a switch I can turn off at will, Tony," Pepper finally said. "I'm still here, and I'm not the only one. There are people who really care about you. Don't ever think you have to take on the world alone, okay?"

"I don't… okay," Tony said helplessly. He cleared his throat and turned back towards the bar. He needed another drink. "So, uh… tomorrow, then."

"Ten o'clock," Pepper reminded him, eyeing him reprovingly as he refilled his glass yet again.

He ducked his head in a quick nod and waved her away with one hand while he poured with the other."Yes, yes. Ten o'clock. I'll be there."

"Good. See you tomorrow, Tony."

Pepper made her way back to the elevator doors, which parted welcomingly for her as soon as she stopped in front of them.

"Ground floor, Miss Potts?" came JARVIS's polite voice.

"Yes. Thank you, JARVIS."

Tony watched her disappear behind the elevator doors, then he glanced down at the glass in his hand. He studied the amber liquid for a few moments, absently admiring its rich color, then he tilted his head back and downed it in one swallow. He left the glass fall back onto the bar with a clatter and drew in a long breath.

"Goodbye, Pepper."

* * *

Tony had no idea how long he had been sitting at the bar.

The only thing he had by which to measure the time was the empty scotch decanter at his elbow. As he drained his glass for the final time, he attempted to multiply the number of times he had refilled it by the average amount of time he had lingered over each serving . The best answer he could come up with was that Pepper had left many hours ago, and that he was very drunk.

He could always ask JARVIS for the time, but that would be cheating. Besides, it would break the silence, signaling an end to this prolonged, self-indulgent period of uncharacteristic reverie. It was rare for Tony Stark to respond to emotional distress by inactivity. Usually, he did everything he could think of to crawl out of his own head, to shut down the useless emotions. The alcohol helped, of course. It dulled the ache of failure, but it didn't distract his mind from pondering over and over again all the ways in which he had brought this upon himself. The worst part was wondering which of his two most profound emotions had the upper hand: the heartbreak, or the sense of guilt-ridden relief.

Tony set the empty glass down on the bar and pushed it away with a grunt. He rubbed his eyes and wondered in a detached way just how much his overindulgence was going to come back to bite him. Pepper would kill him for showing up to the meeting tomorrow with an obvious hangover, but it wouldn't be the first time he had done so. Maybe he should drink some water?

Behind him, someone cleared his throat pointedly. Tony straightened with a jerk and let his hand fall from his eyes. JARVIS had been known to mimic the sound of clearing one's throat on occasion for emphasis, but that had not sounded like JARVIS. Before he could even turn to look at the intruder, his suspicions were confirmed when an all too familiar, honey-rich voice spoke.

"The futures of both our realms hang in the balance, and here I find you thoroughly inebriated. Somewhere in the great beyond, Fate is laughing her ass off at me."

"Loki," Tony whispered hoarsely. His voice sounded strange after so many hours of silence. At least, that was the excuse he made to himself for the sudden constriction of his throat. He turned slowly on his bar stool and found himself looking into a pair of gem-like green eyes set in a pale, gaunt face.

Loki stood about ten feet away, his hands folded behind his back and his legs apart in an alert but easy stance. He was dressed much more simply than he had been when Tony had last seen him. He wore a green tunic with a drawstring neckline, slim-fitting pants of supple black suede, black ankle boots, and a long black coat which was free of adornment and looked like it had seen better days. It was not the raiment of a prince or a warrior. It was, Tony suspected, the casual garb of an Asgardian commoner. Loki's hair was also a bit longer than Tony remembered, and not nearly as tidy. It looked disheveled, as if windblown, or as if Loki had been running his long fingers through it repeatedly.

Loki's lips twitched into a knowing smile as Tony studied him, and suddenly Tony's mind snapped back into focus. _Loki _was here. Loki was _here_, on earth, in Stark Tower. Not in prison. Not in Asgard, surrounded by gods who had some hope of holding him in check. He was here. Again. In this very room where he had been defeated last time. In this very room where he had lifted Tony bodily and sent him sailing through a window.

Oh shit.

"JARVIS?" Tony called, his voice a bit shrill with his sudden panic. He reached behind the bar with one hand while keep his eyes firmly fixed on Loki's amused countenance. "A little warning would have been nice!" Where was that knob? His fingers fumbled blindly for the hidden catch that would open the concealed compartment behind the bar.

"Sir?" came JARVIS's reply. The AI sounded completely bewildered. "I detect nothing out of the ordinary."

"Your 'JARVIS' cannot see or hear me, Stark," Loki said. He was still smiling that disconcerting smile, watching Tony's efforts to retrieve something from behind the bar with only mild curiosity. "You see, I am not really here."

"Bullshit. I'm looking right at you. You're not a hallucination. I'm drunk, not tripping."

"Not a hallucination. An astral projection. My soul, communicating directly with yours," Loki explained calmly.

"You stay the fuck away from my soul," Tony grunted as his fingers finally brushed against the disguised knob. He gave it a twist, opening the secret drawer, and yanked out the weapon concealed within. He swung his arm around, leveling the gun at Loki's head. He slid off the bar stool and adjusted his grip on the weapon, recalling that it had a mean kick. It had been one of his pet projects in the aftermath of the Chitauri invasion. It's efficacy against immortals was as yet untested, but he suspected that, at the very least, the modified ammunition it fired would sting like a bitch.

Loki only lifted a contemptuous eyebrow at the weapon. "Your weapon is useless, Stark. I am not here to threaten you, and I have no designs upon your soul." He tilted his head, appearing to reconsider his words. "Well, I have no designs upon it at present," he amended.

"I don't care what you're here for," Tony growled, "Last time you were on earth, you murdered a friend of mine and practically leveled Manhattan. There is nothing you can say to me now that I would be interested in hearing."

At that, Loki's brows drew together. He looked oddly disappointed. "You approached me once in this vary room, unarmored, to engage me in conversation. Out of all of your team of warriors, you were the only one who faced me with no intervening barrier to make you feel safe while you taunted me. Now you face a harmless apparition, and all you do is snarl and wave your pathetic Midgardian weapon at me? Where is that other Stark, the one who confronted me six months ago? I have need of _him_, not you. Not this drunken, small-minded Tony Stark."

"Get out," Tony said softly.

"I require your help," Loki said, biting out the words as if they pained him. He took a step towards Tony, whose only response was to adjust his aim at Loki's head. The god made a noise of frustration deep in his throat. "Will you not even listen to me? The matter about which I have come to speak to you ultimately affects your realm as well as mine."

"No, I'm not going to listen to you," Tony snapped. "You're a liar. You are the _god_ of _lies_, for fuck's sake. Making deals with the devil is not on my to-do list for the day. I want you to get out, _now._"

"Stark-" Loki took another step forward.

Tony squeezed the trigger. The sound of the gun firing was deafening, followed immediately by the sound of shattering glass as the bullet traveled straight through Loki's incorporeal form and destroyed a light fixture behind him.

Loki looked over his shoulder at the remains of the light fixture, then turned back to sneer at Tony. "Nice. I'm insubstantial, you _idiot._"

"Sir," JARVIS said in the longsuffering tone of one who was all too familiar with Tony's proclivity for blowing up his living quarters, "I know that lamp was not your favorite, but scheduling an appointment with an interior decorator might be a better course of action than to shoot at objects that don't meet with your approval."

Tony's only answer was to fire off five more rounds. All of them went straight through Loki, just as the first had. Loki's astral form flickered slightly every time a bullet passed through it, but otherwise they had no effect upon him. Still, there was a kind of catharsis in this form of target practice.

"You are unreasonable," Loki hissed. "I can do nothing with you in this state. I will return at another time when you are sober, and hopefully in your right mind."

With that, Loki's form disappeared completely, leaving Tony alone to stare bemusedly at the destruction he had wrought in his living room.

"Yeah, we're gonna need that decorator," he sighed, slumping back against the bar.

* * *

"Damn him," Loki murmured, opening his eyes. He was still in his cell his Asgard, sitting on the dark stone floor with his back against the wall. After his brief mental holiday on Midgard, he hated the sight of this little chamber more than ever.

"Let me guess: Stark wasn't in a cooperative mood," Coulson said, with annoying cheerfulness. Loki frowned at the ghost, who was currently mimicking his own seated position against the opposite wall of the cell.

"He is impossible," Loki muttered.

"Was he drunk?" Coulson asked. Loki grunted an affirmative. Coulson _tsked_ and shook his head. "He gets a bit reckless and destructive when he drinks. Which is practically all the time, come to think of it."

"I might require your help in this," Loki said, although the admission pained him.

Coulson's lips twitched in one of those irritating little smiles of his. "Yeah? What happened to knowing 'precisely' what you were doing?"

"Shut up."

Coulson chuckled and stretched out his legs before him in a more comfortable position. Not that comfort meant anything to a ghost. Loki knew that the human's form was a mere illusion, yet he had the strange conviction that if he only leaned forward and reached out his hand toward one of the agent's shiny black shoes, he would feel the smooth, polished leather under his fingertips. He swallowed, shaking his head to free himself of the disconcerting thought.

"He mentioned you," Loki said after clearing his throat. "At least, I believe it was you he meant. Of all the deaths I caused on Midgard, I believe that yours weighs heaviest upon him."

Coulson's eyes softened. He pursed his lips and made a soft humming sound while he thought this over, then he nodded. "Then we'll use that to our advantage. If he knows that I want him to help you, maybe it will be enough to persuade him."

"Stark does not strike me as the type of mortal who believes in ghosts," Loki pointed out.

"He already believes in immortals, super heroes, and aliens. Ghosts aren't that big a stretch," Coulson said with a rueful smile. "We just have to convince him. When it comes to Stark, I've always had ways of being persuasive. Now, this is what you should tell him…"

* * *

**I should probably warn you all now that I am not planning for Thanos to make an appearance in this fic. He is a catalyst for some of the events in this story, but he will not be the main villain. This is mostly because it's already been done so many times before (most notably by Like_a_Hurricane in the amazing "Tricks of the Trade" series, which you should go read **_**right now**_** if you've been living under a rock and haven't read it yet), and because I don't want to attempt to anticipate what Joss Whedon's take on Thanos will be in the next Avengers movie.**

**Anyway, thanks for reading, and please keep the reviews coming!**


	3. Chapter 3: Black Coffee

**Just in case anyone is wondering where the rest of the Avengers are, I should probably note here that I am trying to stay true to the ending of the movie, which implies that the team has (at least temporarily) disbanded. They have all "gone their separate ways" for now. This also means Stark Tower is still the headquarters for Stark Industries rather than being converted into an Avengers HQ.**

* * *

Tony was only half an hour late for his meeting the next morning. This feat would have been more impressive had it required him to do more than tumble out of bed, make himself as presentable as he could be bothered to after a night of excessive drinking and very little sleep, and then step into his private elevator to descend a dozen or so floors to his destination.

The conference room, where the meeting was already in progress, was located directly across a broad, sunlit hallway from the elevators. The large room was enclosed in glass, which did not allow sounds to penetrate, but which did give Tony a perfect view of one of the Stark Industries' more opinionated directors gesticulating wildly as he ranted to a bored audience. Pepper, seated across from said director, appeared to be listening to him with a look of almost saintly patience. Then she spotted Tony through the glass wall, and a look of profound relief flickered in her eyes momentarily. That was not a good sign. If Pepper was that happy to see him, then this meeting was going to be even worse than he had anticipated.

He watched Pepper rise to her feet, briefly excusing herself from the meeting. Then she slipped out of the room and crossed the hallway toward him. She was running her eyes over him with a look that plainly said, "you look like death warmed over." No doubt she was gearing up to voice her opinion of CEOs who showed up to meetings rumpled, unshaved, and bleary-eyed. But her lecture was forestalled by the sudden appearance of a striking blond woman who offered Tony a wide smile and held out a paper cup of coffee to him. For a few seconds, Tony couldn't decide whether the woman or the steaming coffee was the more welcome sight.

The woman was clearly a recent addition to the staff at Stark Industries. Tony knew for a fact that he would have remembered her if they had met before. He suspected, in fact, that she was the sort of woman who left an impression on everyone who met her. It wasn't that she was simply beautiful. There were a lot of beautiful women in the world; he had reason to know that. The difference was in her bearing. She projected a sort of imposing golden splendor with an enticing undercurrent of mystery. It was an attractive combination, especially packaged in a sleek business suit and four inch heels. Her figure was a nice blend of curves and athleticism, and she was tall enough to tower over Tony in her high heels. Tony found himself thinking that she looked a bit like a female counterpart to Thor. Only, Thor wouldn't have done justice to that skirt.

"Coffee, Mr. Stark?" the woman asked. He met her twinkling green-eyed gaze and was momentarily arrested by the look of pure mischief he found there. She looked as if she knew exactly what he was thinking and was deeply amused by it. And there was something strangely bewitching about her smile. He found himself returning the smile rather foolishly in spite of his nagging hangover.

"Mr. Stark doesn't like to be handed things," Pepper said in a sharper tone than seemed strictly necessary for the circumstances. Tony blinked once at the sound of her voice, feeling as if he was emerging from a mental fog. Damn hangover. He desperately needed that coffee.

"In this instance, Mr. Stark will make an exception," Tony said hastily, accepting the coffee cup and cradling it to his chest possessively. It smelled incredible. He turned the blond woman and said in a heartfelt tone, "Thank you. I don't know who you are, but you are clearly a goddess."

Her smile widened.

"Thank you, Teresa," Pepper said in what was clearly meant to be a tone of dismissal, "Mr. Stark is late for his meeting, so please excuse us. I'll introduce you properly at another time."

"I look forward to it," Tony said.

"Oh, I'm sure you do," Pepper murmured as she took his left arm and steered him away. Tony had to quickly switch his coffee cup to his right hand to avoid spilling any of its precious contents. Meanwhile, the young woman lingered in the hallway to watch them. She was still wearing that wide, knowing smile.

"Who is she?" Tony demanded in an undertone, still looking back over his shoulder at "Teresa" as he was practically dragged across the hall towards the conference room.

"Teresa Leighton, my new assistant. Quit staring. You look ridiculous."

"Since when does my assistant need an assistant?"

"Since your assistant starting doing most of your job for you," Pepper replied shortly.

Ouch. Tony was momentarily distracted by a twinge of guilt in his chest, which was immediately answered by a stabbing pain from just behind his light-sensitive eyes. The day had barely begun, and he could already tell that it was to be one of penance for his numerous and varied misdeeds.

"I tried to give you my job a while back, you know," Tony reminded her.

"You _did_ give it to me. For one week. Then I gave it _back_. Now, somehow, I'm doing it again," Pepper muttered.

"Well if you don't want my job, we could always call you the 'Assistant CEO' instead of 'Personal Assistant to the CEO.' Subtle distinction there, but it comes with a raise."

"We made that change three months ago," Pepper said with obvious exasperation. "Don't you remember?"

"No. I was busy three months ago. Did you get a raise?"

"Yes."

"Great. Are we good, then?" Tony asked hopefully.

Pepper's only response was to fix him with a stare in which pity and contempt were present in equal measure, a look that Tony was going to have to add to his list of his least favorite expressions worn by Pepper. It was just as well that they had reached the door to the conference room by this time, because Tony was starting to think he'd rather face the board of directors than Pepper in this mood. Tony fortified himself with a quick gulp of coffee then pushed open the door to face his doom head-on.

The meeting turned out to be exactly as aggravating and interminable as Tony had expected. There was a considerable amount of ground to be covered, especially given Tony's recent unreliability as Stark Industries' CEO. It was a good thing that he still owned a controlling share of the company and that he had an extraordinarily capable assistant in Pepper, or his ass would be so fired right now.

When not actively participating in the (extremely tedious) discussion, Tony allowed his mind to drift back to his somewhat blurry recollections of the previous night. Not the break-up; he had spent so much time mulling over it last night that he could probably recite his whole conversation with Pepper from memory. No, it was Loki's bizarre appearance in his living room that occupied his thoughts now. If he hadn't seen the bullet holes in his walls and the remains of a very ugly lamp on the floor this morning, he would have just assumed that he had dreamed the encounter. Even now, he wasn't sure he hadn't hallucinated Loki. It was just too fantastic, too bizarre to believe that the disgraced god of mischief had actually popped up in his living room to ask him for help.

Help with what? Now that his mind was no longer quite so clouded by alcohol and the bitter sting of getting dumped by Pepper, Tony suddenly found himself overwhelmingly curious to know just what the god had wanted from him. Surely it would take extraordinary circumstances to compel an immortal of Loki's staggering vanity to humble himself to the point of requesting aid from a lowly human. Of course, nothing that Loki said should ever be taken at face value. He was the trickster, the god of lies. Perhaps asking Tony for help was part of some new plot Loki was hatching for world domination. But what exactly did he expect Tony to do, break him out of Asgard?

_I am not here to threaten you_, Loki had said last night. Tony had a feeling that Loki had chosen those words deliberately. He recalled another conversation held in that same room, but under very different circumstances.

_Please tell me you're going to appeal to my humanity._

_Actually, I'm planning to threaten you._

Their positions had been reversed on that occasion. Tony had been the one to confront Loki, and Loki had been the one holding the weapon. Their conversation had been short and Tony had not particularly liked how it had ended, but it had proven rather illuminating all the same. And evidently it had left an impression on Loki.

Last night, Loki had come specifically looking for _that_ Tony Stark. The Tony Stark who had considered the beginning of a war for humanity's future to be an appropriate moment in which to initiate a one-on-one chat with the enemy. The Tony Stark who had thought it was a good idea to ditch all of his armor and weaponry before making threats against a god. The Tony Stark who had made a dick joke right before getting tossed through a window.

So did that mean that Loki simply wanted him vulnerable? Was that what he had meant last night when he said he needed _that_ Tony Stark, the one who had confronted him six months ago? A weaponless, unarmored Tony Stark who was a prime target for defenestration?

What else had Loki said last night?

_Out of all of your team of warriors, you were the only one who faced me with no intervening barrier to make you feel safe while you taunted me._ No intervening barrier. Loki must have been referring to the cell in which he had been imprisoned on the Helicarrier. Tony had not had anything to say to Loki while he was a captive; he left the interrogations to the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. It was only later, once Loki had escaped and Tony had formed a better understanding of his plans, that he had decided to confront the god. Their discussion had taken place face-to-face, not through a cell wall.

Now Loki was in another cage, this time in Asgard. He needed help for some reason, and he either could not or would not request it from his Asgardian jailors. Instead, he had come to Tony, who had once faced Loki on more-or-less equal ground to engage him in an actual conversation. _That_ was the Tony Stark Loki had been looking for last night.

That was not the Tony Stark he had found.

Tony was abruptly drawn out his reverie by the sound of his name. He looked up to find everyone around the conference table looking at him expectantly. "What are your thoughts, Tony?" the Chief Financial Officer was asking him.

"Uh…"

To his left, Pepper shifted slightly in her seat. Her tablet was sitting on the table at Tony's elbow, and she pushed it gently towards him. Her fingertips rested casually on the edge of the screen, conveniently pointing out a particular paragraph in the document currently in question without drawing attention to her action. Tony glanced down, rapidly scanned the paragraph, and managed to respond to the question without making a complete fool of himself. When he glanced at Pepper a moment later, she didn't meet his eyes, but her lips curved in the barest hint of a smile.

Half an hour later, after Tony had been rubbing at his temples in an effort to relieve his persistent headache, he felt fingertips brush against his hand where it rested on the table. Pepper turned his hand over and pressed two small pills into his palm, curling his fingers around them before her hand withdrew. Tony wondered where the pain killers had even come from. He had not actually seen Pepper reach into her purse to retrieve them, but she much have at some point. Tony popped the pills into his mouth and washed them down with the last of his coffee, then he shot Pepper another sidelong look. This time she briefly returned his gaze and her smile was a little more pronounced.

Maybe it was some kind of peace offering. Maybe it was Pepper's way of saying she forgave him for being… him. If so, he would take it.

It was late afternoon before the meeting finally ended. Even then, Tony wasn't able to retreat back to his own floor yet. It seemed like every person in the room had something they wanted to ask him, or tell him, or they just wanted to make some inane joke about how reclusive he had been recently. His leash on his temper was precariously threadbare by the time he finally managed to escape. Pepper had slipped out earlier, taking unfair advantage of the fact that everyone's attention had been fixed on Tony. He was going to have to find some way to pay her back for that piece of unchivalrous behavior later.

For now, he just wanted to get back to the penthouse and collapse at the bar. His hangover had abated, and he was finally feeling like he might be able to keep something down other than coffee and painkillers. He might order takeout from that Chinese place he liked but could never remember the name of. JARVIS would have the number for the restaurant. In fact, Tony would just let the AI call in his order. JARVIS had much better telephone manners than Tony did, anyway.

As he was walking out of the conference room towards the elevators, he spotted Teresa Leighton striding up the hall towards him. Normally he wouldn't have minded seeing a beautiful woman approaching him, but he saw a folder tucked under her arm and a purposeful look in her eyes, and he threw up a warding hand. "No. I'm off the clock. You really don't want to mess with me right now."

"Mr. Stark," Teresa said, completely undeterred, "Pepper wanted me to give you these documents to review and sign." She had a pleasant voice, Tony noticed. Low and smooth, with a light accent. She sounded British.

"Oh, did she?" Tony asked irritably. "And where is Pepper, exactly? She and I need to have words about the fact that she abandoned me in a room full of sharks."

Teresa came to a stop in front of him, taking the folder out from under her arm. "Pepper left already. She said something about meeting someone for coffee."

Damn. Pepper had ditched him to go on a date with "Brent." That was… actually, that was completely unlike the Pepper he used to know. He wasn't sure quite what he thought about this new Pepper, a Pepper whose life no longer revolved entirely around him. He just knew that he didn't approve of it.

"Well, I hope Pepper realizes I'm just going to sign the papers without reviewing them," Tony said, scowling at the folder which Teresa was still holding in front of her. He noticed that she wasn't actually holding them out to him.

"I imagine she does," Teresa said cheerfully. Then she followed his gaze down to the folder in her hands. "So, you don't like to be handed things."

"That's right."

She eyed the folder for a moment then looked back up at him. She was grinning, and those bright green eyes were clearly laughing at him. "We have a problem, then, don't we?"

Tony observed her expression and wondered why she seemed so damned amused by him. Was he really that entertaining? He frowned down at the folder, and then he reached out and snatched it from her grip. "Gimme that."

She started slightly, and for a split second she seemed poised for some retaliatory action. Then she laughed. Somehow, he was not surprised to find that she had a beautiful laugh. "Well, now that we've dealt with that, should I call your pilot to have your plane on standby for your departure?"

Tony blinked at her for a moment. "My departure?"

"Weren't you planning to fly back to California this evening?"

Was he? Tony couldn't remember exactly what his plans had been yesterday. All he knew was that at some point in the last twenty-four hours, his plans had changed. He didn't want to go back to Malibu just yet. Pepper's rebukes still formed a constant litany in his head, and the events of today had hit home just how irresponsible he had been in his corporate duties. Then there was his surreal and possibly hallucinatory encounter with Loki. Tony was curious to see whether the god would return, as he had threatened to do. No, Tony was not ready to leave New York just yet.

"That won't be necessary," he said. "I'll be sticking around for a couple days, at least."

A strange expression washed over Teresa's face. Tony couldn't tell whether this information was welcome to her, or quite the reverse. But the odd look vanished so quickly that he wasn't entirely certain it had ever been there in the first place. "That's excellent news," Teresa replied promptly, "Pepper will be so pleased."

"And what about you? Are you pleased?" he asked. He offered her a smile clearly intended to be an invitation, curious to see how she would react.

Her answering smile was polite, but the mischief was dancing in her eyes again. "Of course," she said with an assumption of cool professionalism belied by an underlying note of flirtation, "I'm always pleased when Pepper's pleased. Will that be all this evening, Mr. Stark?"

Tony huffed out a soft laugh. Here was another reason he wasn't anxious to leave just yet. He was rather intrigued by Pepper's new assistant. "That will be all, Ms. Leighton."

* * *

A few hours later found Tony sitting in a low chair at the center of his living room, hunched over a carton of Kung Pao chicken. In spite of the bullet holes in one wall and the pile of glass and debris on the floor which he had not bothered to clean up yet, this room had a soothing influence over him. He was just beginning to feel a bit more human after having spent most of the day in hungover zombie mode. Then a familiar velvet voice shattered the tranquil atmosphere.

"Are you sober, Stark?"

Willing himself with a supreme effort not to jump out of his skin, Tony turned towards the sound of Loki's voice. The god was standing just beside his chair, bent at the waist to bring their faces to the same level. Loki inclined his head towards Tony, as if to commend him on his restraint. There was a little mocking smile on his lips, but the expression in his eyes was strained. He looked just as disheveled as he had yesterday and even more tired.

Tony swallowed the chicken he had been in the act of chewing, grateful that he hadn't choked on it. Then he set down the carton on the table in front of him and turned to examine the god more closely. Loki straightened as he did so, looming over Tony in a disconcerting manner. Tony got to his feet. He considered stepping up onto the chair to erase their height difference, but he figured that would just look childish.

"I'm sober," he replied in a tone of forced calm. "But I can't exactly say I'm happy to see you." He itched to take a few steps backwards, to put some distance between himself and the god, but he didn't want to be seen to retreat. Besides, wasn't Loki insubstantial? Running away from an apparition just seemed pathetic. He stood his ground.

"That doesn't concern me," Loki said dismissively. "I didn't expect to be popular with you."

"But you still think there's some chance that I'd be willing to help you?"

"I think so, if you give me the opportunity to explain myself."

Tony snorted. "And why would I give you that opportunity? You tried to take over my planet six months ago," he continued, ticking Loki's various offenses off on his fingers. "You unleashed an alien army. You almost crashed the Helicarrier. You murdered Agent Coulson. You-"

"Yes," Loki cut in, "I murdered Agent Coulson. And he haunts me."

"Bullshit," Tony sneered, "Don't try convince me that you feel any remorse-"

"No remorse, Stark," Loki said sharply, interrupting again. His eyes flashed dangerously and he stepped forward, hands clenching at his sides. Tony found himself taking an involuntary step back in response to Loki's advance. "I feel no remorse," Loki hissed. "I would do it again, and for the same reasons. You are not aware of those reasons, but you will know them in time. I meant what I said quite literally. The ghost of Agent Coulson haunts me. It is because of knowledge I gained from him that I am here now."

Tony blinked at him, momentarily nonplussed. "You're being haunted," he said in a tone devoid of emotion.

"Yes."

"By Coulson's ghost."

"Yes."

Tony stared at him for another long moment, then he dissolved into near-hysterical cackles of mirth. He couldn't help it. The situation was just too ridiculous, and the phrase "bag full of cats" kept playing on repeat through his mind. Loki's dark expression became downright surly as he watched. He probably didn't find any of this humorous in the least, and even Tony wasn't sure whether he was laughing because he was genuinely amused, or because his mind had just cracked. Probably the latter. There was only so much exposure he could take to things like gods, magic, interdimensional portals, and ghosts before his brain started rejecting all of it.

"You don't believe me," Loki muttered. "I told him you wouldn't."

"I have no idea whether I believe you or not," Tony replied, trying to suppress his shudders of laughter, "I just can't believe that this is my life. You would not believe the agony I've gone through all day, and now I have to deal with this. Now I have a god in my living room telling me that he's been up in Asgard chatting with ghosts, and saying that the ghost of Phil Coulson, _who he murdered_, wants me to help him. So I would dearly love to know one thing; am I the crazy one in this room, or would that be you?"

Loki stiffened and his face twisted unpleasantly into an expression of bitter rage. "I am _not_ crazy," he insisted, very much in the tone of one trying to convince himself as well as others.

"Then prove it to me. Prove that you've actually been talking to the real Coulson," Tony challenged.

Some of the rage died in Loki's eyes. He swallowed and relaxed slightly, eyeing Tony with a wary expression. "Very well," he said, his tone smooth once more. It was amazing how changeable his voice was. How melodic it sounded at some times, how rasping and snarling at others. "I can start by telling you how he bypassed your security on the night he visited this tower after I arrived on earth."

"That won't work," Tony said, turning and waving his hand in a dismissive gesture. He began to move towards the bar, calling back over his shoulder, "I know how he did it, and that little exploit has been fixed. Not that S.H.I.E.L.D. doesn't have a dozen new ways to get in by now. It's kind of this game we play, back and forth. They hack my systems, I hack theirs. It's all in good fun. But other people may have had access to that information. Barton, for instance, or one of the other agents you mind-controlled. Try again."

"Stark," Loki said warningly, watching Tony take down a bottle from the shelf behind the bar.

"Go ahead, I'm listening," Tony said, reaching under the bar for a glass. "I'm not going to start shooting up the room again. Can I get you something?"

Loki gave a huff of annoyance, reluctantly following Tony to the bar. "I cannot drink in this form," he reminded him irritably. "I am not physically present."

"That must suck," Tony said as he poured himself some scotch. "But don't mind me. You were saying?"

"Yes," Loki murmured. He paused on the other side of the bar, watching intently as Tony lifted the glass to his lips and took a long sip. Tony blinked at him from over the rim of the glass. Loki had just swallowed, as if he was imagining the feel of the liquid down his own throat as he watched Tony drink. Was he thirsty? He didn't look like he was being starved or mistreated in any way, but Tony realized suddenly that he had no idea how Asgardians treated their prisoners. Feeling strangely uncomfortable, he cleared his throat pointedly. Loki blinked, as if coming out of a daze.

"Yes," he said again, recalling his purpose. "I understand that you once had a project you needed to complete within a short window of time. Coulson tells me that there was much at stake, but you were being… difficult. He was tasked with supervising your progress, and he issued a very peculiar threat which he believes you may have found memorable."

Tony lowered his glass slowly and set it on the bar. He was definitely paying attention now.

"You'll have to excuse me if I don't get the wording quite correct, for I must confess it conveys little sense to me," Loki continued. "He says he told you that if you did not cooperate, he would taze you and watch 'Supernanny' while you drooled into the carpet." He tilted his head to the side, lifting one of his expressive eyebrows. "Did I get that right?"

Holy shit. "That's… right. I seem to remember something about Supernanny and drooling, yes," Tony said in a tone of forced calm, but he knew his eyes had widened a bit.

"There was no one else present for that conversation, was there?" Loki said, pressing his advantage now that he had gotten a reaction from Tony. "According to Coulson, any cameras or listening devices in that room had been disabled by a recent explosion. And he tells me that, due to the nature of the project you were working on, he would not have repeated that conversation to anyone below a certain clearance level, which would rule out any of the agents that I… recruited. There is, in fact, no other source I could have heard it from."

Tony lifted his glass for another sip of scotch, stalling for time. He ran it through his mind, trying to imagine other means by which Loki could have obtained that information. Honestly, he couldn't come up with anything at the moment.

"Okay," he said, clunking his glass down on the bar with a decisive motion. He placed both hands on the bar and leaned forward, looking Loki directly in the eyes. "Now you have my full and undivided attention. Start explaining."

* * *

**I am going to try to update every 1-2 weeks, but updates will probably slow in late December/early January because I'll be working a lot of overtime. Merry Christmas to me, right?**

**Anyway, thanks for reading, and please leave a review!**


	4. Chapter 4: Truth and Manipulation

**Wow. This chapter has a lot of talking in it. Sorry about that. It's kind of tough to get these characters to shut up when you get them together.**

* * *

For a long moment, Loki stared back at Tony without speaking. His expression was neither lost nor triumphant, but frozen somewhere between the two emotions.

"Any time now," Tony said impatiently.

Loki's brows drew together. "I am trying to decide exactly where to begin."

Tony opened his mouth to make a suggestion, but Loki cut in, "And if, like some boorish idiot, you tell me to begin at the beginning, I will find some way to eviscerate you despite my insubstantiality. It will probably require me talk you into performing the deed yourself, but if you think I cannot do it, think again. I am not called Silvertongue for nothing."

"Okay, Hannibal, cool it," Tony muttered. He didn't think Loki could do it. Probably. Hopefully. Tony could be pretty damn stubborn, and one of his greatest talents was not listening when other people spoke to him. "I was _going_ to say, start with Coulson. I can't seem to wrap my head around that one. I mean, why the hell would he want to haunt you? Other than to torment you, of course, since you sort of _murdered_ him. When did this start?"

"He appeared in my cell yesterday," Loki said, taking a step back from the bar. He began to pace slowly back and forth in front of it.

"Appeared?" Tony echoed. "Just out of the blue?"

"Yes. I was actually thinking about him at the time, and then he suddenly appeared in front of me. I thought him a hallucination, at first," Loki admitted.

Tony grunted. "That seems to be going around." He took a sip from his glass, using the opportunity to think for a moment. None of this was making sense to him, and yet he was inclined to believe Loki. Partly because of the evidence regarding the Supernanny conversation, which Loki definitely shouldn't have known about. Partly because Loki looked almost as bewildered by the circumstances of Coulson's appearance as Tony felt. "Why you? Why Asgard? Why couldn't he have shown up somewhere here on earth?"

"I am not entirely certain," Loki muttered. "He says he has little control over where he appears, but he may have more control than he realizes. The timing of his arrival was too perfect for coincidence. He may have subconsciously sensed when I spoke his name aloud and followed the summons. He says that no one else has ever seen him before, but that he has been 'showing up' from place to place on earth since his death."

"Shit. Has he been here?"

"I believe he mentioned something about a conversation he overheard between you and a Ms. Potts, so it seems likely," Loki said.

"_Shit_," Tony repeated. "It wasn't last night, was it?"

Loki shook his head, still pacing. "No, I believe it was a short while after my attack on Midgard."

Tony breathed a soft sigh of relief and took another much larger sip of scotch. Loki shot him an accusing frown, but Tony waved him off. "I promise I'm not going to go ballistic this time. Keep explaining. Why can you see him, if no one else can? One of the perks of being a god?"

Loki grimaced. "I would not regard seeing the dead on a regular basis as a perk, believe me. And no, it has not happened to me before. I can only guess that it is because I murdered him in a most intimate manner at a moment when we both experiencing rather extreme emotions. That sort of thing can create a link between souls. Not usually a very pleasant link, certainly, but in this case it has proven useful."

At those callous words, uttered without the smallest hint of remorse, a cold rage threatened to choke Tony. He could feel it clawing at his insides, howling to get out, to damage and kill. He drew in a long, deep breath and let it out slowly. Then he set his glass carefully down on top of the bar so that he would not feel tempted to fling it across the room. "Useful," he repeated and was amazed at how level and reasonable his voice sounded.

Loki had stopped pacing. He was watching Tony curiously, examining the emotions as they flitted across his face. "Yes," he said quietly. "To be useful seems to be of the utmost importance to him."

Tony let out a laugh. It was a hollow, broken sound. Loki tilted his head to one side, still regarding him thoughtfully. He was clearly aware of the restraint Tony was exerting over his emotions, and he seemed to approve. Instead of taking the opportunity to taunt Tony for the pain he was evidently experiencing, he merely said, "You are not sentimental, Stark."

Tony snorted bitterly. "No. I have never been accused of that."

Loki nodded, as if Tony had just passed a test. "Coulson believes he has a mission to fulfill before he can pass on," he said.

"Jesus," Tony muttered. "He does realize there's no overtime pay for working after death, right?"

"You don't find his devotion to duty commendable?" Loki asked, his lips curving with a suggestion of a smile. It was not a sarcastic smile, Tony realized with a minor shock. It looked almost… fond. Exactly how friendly had Loki and Coulson gotten in just two days?

"I think he's way overdue for a vacation," Tony answered.

"He does not appear to agree," Loki said, that strange almost-smile still lingering on his face. "I don't know if he is right about this mission he thinks he must perform. It is possible that Odin may have given him a task to complete before he enters into the afterlife."

"Why Odin, specifically?"

"He is the caretaker of Valhalla, where the souls of warriors that die in battle reside. In theory, Coulson's soul should have gone into his keeping," Loki explained.

"In theory?"

"It is possible for a soul to have enough willpower to resist the call to the afterlife. It fact, it probably happens much more often that the gods would care to admit. These ghosts are not always fully sentient, and they usually haunt specific places or people. But some are powerful enough to move freely from place to place, person to person. Some are even powerful enough to interact with the mortal realm in ways that living humans can sense."

"How do you know all of this if seeing dead people isn't a regular thing for you?" Tony asked.

Loki's expression darkened. "I could not grow up as a son of Odin without knowing something of his powers and duties. Besides, you humans have been telling ghost stories since you first began to speak. Every legend contains a grain of truth."

"Even that one about you and the horse?" Tony asked impulsively, before he paused to consider the wisdom of taunting a homicidal god with such an undignified legend.

Sure enough, Loki's demeanor went from surly to absolutely livid within the blink of an eye. He made a sound like the hissing of a snake. "That! A disgusting piece of juvenile humor. Thor's idea of a _hilarious_ joke to be told at feasts. I am known to be a shape changer, and he thinks it marvelously funny to imply that I took the form of a mare and bore Odin's steed. I don't know how humans got hold of the story, but it is _not_ true."

"Okay, okay!" Tony said, raising both hands in a sign of surrender. "Touchy. I didn't really think it was true. Seems a little farfetched, even for your crowd."

"We are getting off topic," Loki growled as he returned to his pacing.

"Yeah, sorry, my bad," Tony said. "You were saying about Coulson?"

Loki did not respond for a moment. He moved back and forth restlessly before the bar, his hands clasped tightly behind him and his head bent forward slightly. His long black coat made soft swishing noises around his legs with every step. Finally he paused and lifted his head slightly, speaking more to the wall opposite him than to Tony, "Before I explain the nature of my conversation with Agent Coulson, particularly the part which led me to seek out your help, I must provide you with some background information." The look on his face, coupled with the gritting tone of his voice, suggested that he would much rather have his fingernails yanked out one by one than to provide this information to Tony. Naturally, that just made Tony more curious.

"I'm listening," Tony encouraged.

Loki blinked a few times, his eyes still fixed on the opposite wall instead of on Tony. "Some little while ago, I was caught within the void," he began. Then he stopped. His brows drew together, and there was a long pause, as if he was trying to collect his thoughts.

"That's a nice, spooky way to open a story," Tony finally commented, "But what does it even mean?"

Loki shifted his weight then gripped his hands more tightly behind his back until the knuckles shown white. "The void is the space between," he said after a moment. "It is a place that does not exist, not really. One must travel through it to teleport between places and realms, but if you miscalculate, if you are trapped there, you will fall through thick, terrible darkness forever. It is a darkness that is alive. It fills your lungs and chokes you. It blinds, but it sees into you. It sees everything that you are, and then it unmakes you."

Loki's voice had lowered to a harsh, scraping whisper. His eyes, still staring at nothing, were wide and full of horrors. Tony found himself looking away, unable to derive any pleasure from this brief display of weakness from his enemy. After a moment, Loki seemed to pull himself together. He shot a brief, unreadable look in Tony's direction, and then he resumed his pacing.

"I was in the void for a matter of months, it seems," Loki continued in a steadier voice. "I was not aware of time while I was there, but it could not have been very long."

"A few months can be a long time, under the right circumstances," Tony murmured out of bitter personal experience.

"Yes, I suppose you are right," Loki agreed. He shot another, more probing look in Tony's direction. But Tony was not interested in discussing his own past horrors.

"How did you get there?" he asked Loki. "A miscalculation?"

"No. I fell into it by choice."

Tony blinked at him. "You chose that? Why?"

"My reasons are not relevant to this discussion," Loki said coldly. "Suffice it to say that I fell, but I did not fall for long. A creature of immense power scried my position and drew me out of the void. He wanted me for the information I held regarding Asgard and its treasures. Most importantly, he wanted information about the Tesseract."

"Ah ha," said Tony. He rested his elbows on the top of the bar and leaned forward expectantly. "Now we're getting somewhere. You're talking about the leader of those aliens. The one who gave you an army."

Loki shook his head. "I am actually referring to his master. The one who rules the Chitauri is called 'the Other.' He is a dangerous creature in his own right, but he serves another. I cannot speak his master's name, but he has many other titles you can choose from. He is sometimes called the Overmaster, the Mad Titan, or perhaps most appropriately, Death's Lover. Death is his mistress, and he gives her many gifts."

"You're speaking figuratively, I hope."

Loki's lips stretched thin in a ghoulish smile. His expression was a mixture of horror and morbid enjoyment. It was not a pleasant look, to say the least. It was, in fact, the look of a desperate man claiming a gruesome sort of pleasure wherever he could find it. Loki was the sort of man, Tony reflected, who would smile at the end of the world even while he screamed internally. And then Tony suddenly realized, with a sickening jolt of surprise, that Loki was not truly callous at all. Loki was dangerous precisely because he felt too much.

It took Tony a moment after that uncomfortable revelation to realize that Loki was speaking again. "I meant it literally," Loki was saying. "The Overmaster's lover is the physical manifestation of Death herself. He has slain billions in his efforts to woo her. He will not rest until all worlds are stripped of life. Until Death reigns supreme."

"You're serious," Tony breathed. "You're actually serious. And you… you _bargained_ with this guy?"

"Yes," he whispered. "He sifted through my mind, uncovered every secret I ever possessed, shattered what little remained of my psyche after the void," Loki replied softly. "And then he rebuilt me. He taught me. He showed me things that I could never have imagined before. Even with all my arts, all my knowledge, all my many centuries of study, I was as an untutored child in his hands."

"And you were what? Grateful?" Tony asked, bewildered by the note of something akin to awe in Loki's tone.

"Grateful?" Loki laughed, his eyes widening with astonishment and bitter humor at the idea. "Would you feel gratitude towards the one person in the universe before whom you were utterly powerless?"

Tony shook his head, recoiling at the idea. "That would be a no."

"Of course not," Loki said. "You would despise him. And you'd do anything you could to gain an advantage. You would make any bargain, forsake any vow, commit any atrocity to escape his influence."

"I wouldn't go that far."

"But you _would_." Loki was suddenly leaning forward across the bar, until his feverish green eyes were staring directly into Tony's. "You would, because you are like me; you _will not be controlled_."

Tony had to fight his instinct to lower his gaze, to escape those piercing, maddened eyes. What he saw there was too familiar for comfort. He had seen that look in the mirror on more than one occasion.

"I bargained for my freedom," Loki continued. "I bargained for Asgard. And in a roundabout way which you will no doubt fail to appreciate, I bargained for Midgard as well."

Tony snorted. "Yeah. I'm feeling a decided lack of appreciation for the way you murdered hundreds of innocent people. But I guess it's the thought that counts, right?"

"Don't be a fool, Stark. If I had defeated you, earth would have been safe from the Overmaster. He would have his Tesseract, and his attention would be elsewhere by now."

"But we would be slaves," Tony said pointed out. "And as you said, I won't be controlled. Not by him. Not by you. Not by anyone."

Again that look of approval flashed in Loki's eyes. As if Tony had passed another test. Tony was momentarily bewildered by how swiftly Loki's emotional state could alter. The guy had to be bipolar or something. "It is immaterial now," Loki said, backing away from the bar now that he had apparently made his point. He drifted back towards the center of the living room, raising his voice for Tony's benefit. "Now we must start preparing for the inevitable war he will bring to our doorsteps. I suspect that Asgard and earth will be united in this effort."

"And you'll be chipping in with the war effort just as if you haven't been trying to kill us all recently?" Tony asked, refilling his glass before following Loki out into the living room.

Loki had come to a stop next to the scattered collection of colored glass shards that had once been a light fixture. He was examining the little pile of debris critically, as if weighing its merits as a manifestation of chaos within this otherwise orderly environment. He did not lift his head as Tony approached, but he replied to his mocking query in a serious tone. "Actually, if you do not assist me, I fear very much that I will be fighting on the side of the Overmaster in the coming conflict."

Tony pondered that for a moment as he took a sip of scotch. That did not sound much like a threat as Loki had worded it. But if it wasn't a threat, then that only left one possible meaning. Suddenly, Tony realized why Loki had been willing to humble himself before a mere mortal. "You said he's been inside your mind before," he said as the wheels turned within his head. "Can he control people, like you did with the scepter?"

"Very clever, Stark," Loki murmured, still gazing at the shards of glass at his feet. His voice sounded like silk as he uttered Tony's name. "You have already begun to work it out, haven't you? Yes, the scepter was his own design. It was powered by a shard of the Tesseract, but it had been twisted with his power. He does not require the scepter to take over a person's mind. He needs merely to be in contact with them. Or, if his knowledge of his intended victim's mind is _particularly_ intimate, he does not even need that. With a strong scrying spell and a sizeable exertion of power, he could turn me into his personal puppet even from a very great distance. I don't know how long he could maintain the connection, but probably more than long enough to suit his purposes."

"Definitely not good," Tony commented. Then, more out of hope than conviction he asked, "Last summer, was he-"

"No," Loki interrupted. He shot Tony a brief, knowing look. "That was entirely my doing. He had no need to control me then. We had a bargain, you see."

"Only, you didn't deliver."

"No." Loki returned to his contemplation of the glass on the floor.

Tony stepped a little closer to Loki and nudged at a few of the shards of glass with his shoe, changing their position on the floor. A light frown flickered over Loki's features as he watched. Was he annoyed because Tony had disturbed the random nature of the pattern, or because Tony was interacting with the environment in a way that Loki was unable to?

"The information Coulson gave you. It was about the arc reactor, wasn't it?" Tony asked.

"You really have worked it out then," Loki murmured.

"It wasn't that hard. You clearly need a way to keep this Overmaster out of your head. And the only reason I can think of that you'd come to me for help is because the scepter didn't work when you used it on me. Because of this." He tapped on the arc reactor, which was just barely visible as a faint blue glow under his shirt. "So let me make this perfectly clear right now. There is no way in _hell_ that I'm giving you an arc reactor."

Loki huffed out a soft, impatient breath, but he was clearly not defeated yet. "I don't need an exact replica. In fact, it wouldn't suit my purpose at all. It is too large, and there is no guarantee that it would protect against any mind-control spells that do not require access to the heart as a gateway to the soul, as the scepter does. A device that works on a similar principle to your reactor, but which projects a larger protective shield, would be necessary."

"So all you're asking me to do is to take cutting edge technology that has already been miniaturized, shrink it down even smaller, and make it more powerful?" Tony asked, lifting an eyebrow. "Right. Piece of cake."

Loki frowned slightly. "Does it need to be more powerful? It doesn't need to power any other device. It does need to create a field of energy that will deflect a particular type of magic, but if that was its dedicated purpose…" He trailed off, watching Tony curiously. Tony did his best to hide the fact that he was already sifting through the possibilities in his mind, but his poker face had never been that great. Loki could clearly tell that he was interested in spite of himself. "You think you can do it," Loki said.

"Well _of course_ I can do it," Tony said, covering any small doubts with an exaggerated dose of bravado. He made a wide, sweeping gesture with his arms. Loki stepped back instinctively to avoid contact with Tony's arm, apparently forgetting his incorporeal state. "I'm Tony fucking Stark. I can do anything. You're just not making it very clear why I would do it for _you_."

"Isn't it obvious?" Loki asked. "Wouldn't you prefer to have me as an ally rather than an enemy?"

"Sorry," Tony said, "I've maxed out my quota for allies that I can't trust." He turned away abruptly and walked towards the windows. Out of the corner of his eyes, he could see Loki silently following behind him. Suddenly, he wished he had chosen to retreat in a different direction. Loki might not be able to hurt him, but Tony really didn't want to stand next to him in front of this particular set of windows.

"I would make an admirable test subject, Stark," Loki said softly. His voice was like velvet now, so utterly sane and reasonable. Tantalizing and persuasive. Almost seductive. He stood at Tony's side, nearly touching. If he had been physically present, Tony would have been able to feel his breath on his neck as he spoke. "I would take all the risks. If the device worked for me, you could reproduce it. Give one to each of your allies. Offer them some protection when the Overmaster comes."

"I only have your word for it that he's coming at all," Tony pointed out, resisting the urge to step away from Loki's hovering form.

Loki gave a low, humorless laugh. The hollowness of it sent a little chill down Tony's spine. "You destroyed an entire army of Chitauri. You defeated me and kept the Tesseract out of his hands. Would the Lover of Death be likely to ignore such a challenge, do you think? Or do you suppose I made him up entirely?"

"No," Tony admitted, turning his head to meet Loki's eyes. Someone had given Loki an army. Someone had bargained with him for the Tesseract. Someone had made the god of mischief, chaos, and lies _afraid_. Loki could have fabricated parts of his story, but not all of it. Tony sighed. "He'd love it, wouldn't he? The fact that we blew up the alien mothership would be like an engraved invitation for this guy. It would be a game to him."

"It would increase his pleasure a hundredfold as he annihilated you," Loki whispered.

If Loki was lying, Tony decided, he was the best damn liar in the history of forever. Which, to be fair, he probably was, given the whole "god of lies" thing. But in that moment, Tony believed him. Sure, Tony knew that he was probably being ruthlessly and shamelessly manipulated by the god. But there was a whole universe of pain and fear and vengeance in Loki's eyes at that moment, and Tony didn't believe that he was faking it. The threat was real.

"Can we stop him?" Tony asked in a casual tone that was completely at odds with the icy sensation forming at the pit of his stomach.

"We have to," Loki replied. And really, it was the only possible answer to such a pointless question.

"Right." Tony threw back his head to drain the rest of the scotch in his glass. Then he headed back towards the bar. Loki remained at the windows, frowning slightly as he watched Tony set the glass down on the bar top and then continue on towards his computer console. "JARVIS, new project."

"For your private server, sir?" JARVIS asked.

"That's right. And JARVIS, we're not going to share any of the footage of me talking to thin air, okay?"

"Certainly not, sir. Should I delete the footage, or save it to your server as well?"

"Might as well save it."

"Very good, sir."

"So you'll do it?" Loki asked, breaking into this exchange between master and AI.

"It doesn't sound like I have much of a choice," Tony said, pulling up a holographic schematic of the arc reactor. He squinted at it for a few moments. "How much time do I have?" he asked.

Loki walked up behind him, frowning at the holograph. "I am protected for now by the magic-binding seal on my cell," he said slowly.

"Magic-binding seal? Then how are you doing this astral thingy? Isn't that magic?" Tony asked, wiggling his finger in midair as if to pantomime casting magic.

Loki scrunched his nose in a peculiar frown at the gesture. Maybe that wasn't how spell casting worked. Or maybe Loki was a lot more graceful about it. He had those long, slender fingers which probably looked very elegant as he summoned energy with which to pulverize his enemies.

"Yes. I may have damaged the seal a bit," Loki admitted. "It won't hold him out forever."

"Great," Tony muttered. "Well, sounds like we have a bit of a buffer, at least. Are you planning some sort of jailbreak after I'm finished with this?"

"Of course. The only reason I have allowed myself to be imprisoned for so long was because of the mental protection my cell provides," Loki said.

Tony grimaced and rubbed at his eyes. "I don't know whether to feel comforted or terrified that Asgard isn't any better at keeping you in a cage than we are. We're going to need a way to test whether the device actually works before you break out, though."

Loki appeared to ponder this for a few moments. Then his expression cleared. "The scepter."

"Hmm? What about… oh. The scepter." Tony swallowed hard. He really didn't want to be anywhere near that thing again, even if he was apparently immune to its mind control power. But if that power had come from the Overmaster, then it was definitely the next best thing to having the Overmaster himself in Tony's lab, flinging mind control spells at the prototypes for the device. And it was definitely a safer alternative. There was just one major hitch with that plan. "S.H.I.E.L.D. has it."

"Don't you have friends within S.H.I.E.L.D.?"

"Not sure I'd call 'em 'friends,' exactly…"

"Allies, then," Loki suggested. "I know that you consult for S.H.I.E.L.D. I'm sure you already examined the scepter once, on the flying ship. Tell the director that you need to examine it again, to run further tests. Tell him…" He paused, then shrugged. "Tell him the truth."

"The truth. The god of lies is advocating honesty. Color me stunned."

Loki snorted. "Contrary to popular belief, I am actually capable of telling the truth on occasion. In fact, I do so a great deal more often than I am given credit for. You need not tell the entire truth, in this instance. Tell your director that you want to create a device to shield against future mental attacks, and you need the scepter to test its effectiveness."

"He might go for that," Tony admitted. Then he made a disgusted sound. "Ugh. My tower will be crawling with agents the whole time the scepter is here, though. If he even lets me study the scepter here. No, he'll have to agree to that, at least. I need to do it in my lab. But yeah, agents everywhere. Like rats."

"I trust you'll find some way to work around the difficulty," Loki said dryly.

"Yeah, well, it will make chatting with you a bit difficult, even if they can't see you. _Especially_ if they can't see you."

"We'll find some way to work around that too," Loki said. "I intend to be actively involved in this process." Then he looked down at himself. Tony noticed that the god was starting to look slightly transparent. "As involved as I can be, with my present limitations."

"I figured," Tony sighed. He rubbed at his eyes again then turned back to his schematic.

Loki took a step backwards. "I cannot hold this form much longer. I need rest. I will return later."

"Can't wait," Tony muttered. "Be sure to say 'hi' to Coulson for me."

There was no response. Tony glanced back over his shoulder, but he was alone once more in the large living room. "Huh. Right, then. JARVIS, I think it's time for us to reacquaint ourselves with the lab now."

"Wonderful, sir."

* * *

**Thanks for reading! Please leave a review.**


	5. Chapter 5: Gods and Ghosts

When Loki's soul returned to his body, he was almost immediately aware of one unpalatable fact. He was alone. He opened his eyes to find the stark black box of a cell empty but for himself. There was no ghost present to ask after the success of his errand or to tease him with that irritating, twitchy little smile. There was no Coulson.

Loki let out his breath in a rush of disappointment. Then he slammed his fist against the stone wall, angry at himself for the pointless sentiment. One did not become attached to people, to _ghosts_ of all things, after a mere two days' time spent in their company. Agent Coulson had served his purpose already and Loki had no further need of him. He would not pine after him like some insipid maiden after the object of her infatuation.

And yet Loki found himself feeling restless and fretful. He pushed himself to his feet and began to pace the short distance from one wall to the other and back again. The space was large enough for him to take eight moderately sized steps across it. The floor, walls, and ceiling were all constructed with smooth black stone. The only light came through a small pane of enchanted, nearly indestructible glass set into the heavy metal door.

There was nothing in the little room besides himself and a small brass chamber pot which sat in a corner like a pointed insult to his princely pride. It had collected a fine layer of dust, for it had seen little use. Loki had only rarely accepted offerings of food or drink since the beginning of his incarceration. That would have to change as soon as possible. His fasting had done no permanent harm, but it had weakened him. He could no longer afford that weakness. If Stark was the genius he seemed to be, Loki would be free of his cell before too much longer, and then he would have a great deal of work to do to prepare for Thanos's inevitable arrival on Midgard. He would need to be at his peak physical and mental strength. That meant that the next time a guard came to check on him, he must demand food and water. Loki ran his fingers through his long, disheveled hair and grimaced. Yes, and he should demand water to bathe in, as well. And a change of clothing. He must look like a wild man. Had he really allowed Stark to see him like this? Coulson, too, although for some reason he cared less what the ghost thought of his appearance.

As if Loki's train of thought had summoned one of his jailors, the sounds of heavy footfalls echoed in the passage on the other side of the cell door. There was the grating sound of metal on metal as the heavy locks and bolts were unlocked, and then the door creaked open. Light streamed into the dark chamber. The passage was lit only by torch light, but it nearly blinded Loki after months of sitting alone in his dark cell.

Loki had only a split second to brace himself before he was struck by the stunning spell triggered by the opening of his cell door. The was designed to prevent him from making any move to escape; it briefly immobilized him and left his mind in a daze. When the cell door slammed shut, the rigidity of Loki's limbs relaxed and he was able to move once more. He drew in a sharp breath and tried to blink away the dark spots which clouded his vision after that sudden dose of light. After a few moments, he could finally make out who his visitor was.

It was Thor.

"Not who I was expecting to see. I thought you had given up on me," Loki said. He had meant to sound mocking, but to his disgust he just sounded tired.

"Never that," Thor replied. His voice was low, and he was staring at Loki from under his blond brows like a wary dog expecting to receive a kick from its master. It was rather comforting to see that Thor had developed some instincts for self-preservation, but it was apparently a steep learning curve. Here he was, back for more abuse. Loki only wished that he had enough energy to feel entertained, but he had bigger problems than Thor to deal with right now.

"You enjoy giving me pain, Brother," Thor continued, still in that low voice. "I needed distance."

"It does not appear that you went very far," Loki commented. He had given up reacting in any visible way when Thor called him "brother." If a small, needle-sharp dagger still twisted between his ribs at the sound of that word, that lie spoken like a dearly valued truth, Loki had learned to ignore the sensation.

"I have not come to fight with you," Thor said.

"You never do," Loki reminded him. "But we always come to blows anyway, at least verbally. You know no other way."

Thor stepped forward into the pale shaft of light which streamed through the small pane of glass in the cell door. He was not in full armor. He wore his chest piece and cuffs, but no cape or mail. Loki also noticed that Mjölnir was not hanging from its usual place at Thor's belt, and his brows drew together in thought. It seemed that Thor had taken pains to signal his desire for a truce by attempting to look nonthreatening. The symbolism of the gesture was not lost on Loki, even though he knew that, with his magic bound, Thor could subdue him with nothing but his fists if necessary.

"That is not true," Thor said quietly. Loki looked up to find that Thor's face was lined with weariness. "I have learned the value of surrender."

"And of tactical retreat?"

Thor's face relaxed slightly, and there was a hint of his old roguishness in his eyes. "Perhaps, but I seem to recall that being _your_ specialty," he countered.

Loki spread his arms out at his sides, indicating the small, enclosed cell. "I have nowhere to go now. No tricks at my disposal. I can only stand my ground."

"No tricks?" Thor repeated. "Really?" The humor had disappeared from his face, replaced by the wary look once more. "Heimdall seems to think you still have a few tricks at your disposal."

Suddenly, Loki realized exactly why Thor had come to visit him. "My good friend Heimdall," he said smoothly, flashing an insincere smile at Thor. "What is our dear Gatekeeper saying about me now? You must know how great a fondness he has for me."

"He told me that within the past two days, you have several times hidden yourself from his sight," Thor said, shaking his head in puzzlement. "It should not even be possible for you do so with your magic bound."

"Because you know so much about such things," Loki said dryly.

"About magic, no," Thor admitted. "About your talent for intrigue, I know much." His voice grew sterner. He took several more strides toward Loki, his brow furrowed in a deep frown. "What are you planning now, Loki? What are you doing that you will not allow Heimdall to see?"

Loki allowed himself to be crowded by Thor, perversely refusing to back away. He examined Thor's expression, taking note of the worry, fear, and traces of anger he saw there. "I'm not such a fool as not to know that the Gatekeeper's eyes are often turned toward me," he said softly. "He watches me for any sign of mischief, hoping that I will try to escape or do harm to the guards. You think I don't know that he desired my execution for my many _misdeeds_. That they all did?"

"You would have me believe that Heimdall is lying about your activities so that you will receive further punishment?" Thor demanded.

"Of course not," Loki snarled. "He is right. I have shielded myself from his gaze, and I will continue to do so. I will not be a beast in a cage to be beheld with loathing. But I am still here, am I not? Do you see any signs that I have tried to escape?"

"No," Thor admitted, glanced briefly around the cell before returning his gaze to Loki. "But I wouldn't expect there to be any outward signs if you were plotting your escape. It is not your way."

Well, he was right about that, at least. Thor might be gullible at times, but he knew Loki better than almost anyone else. They held one another's eyes for a long moment, each taking the other's measure. Then Loki drew back a few steps. It was not a retreat, but a momentary adjustment of his forces. Thor folded his arms across his broad chest and continued to watch him grimly.

"If you came only to harass me with Heimdall's accusations, you have wasted your time," Loki told him.

Thor shrugged and looked as if he agreed, but he made no move to leave.

"You might as well make yourself useful, then," Loki said. "I have a few requests. I am hungry and thirsty. I wish for a wash basin, and for clean raiment. Inform the guards, won't you?"

Thor's expression relaxed slightly. He seemed pleased rather than annoyed by Loki's demands. "Are you finally ready to accept sustenance, then?" He asked. He let his arms fall to his sides and gave a brief nod of approval. "Good. You have been too long without food or drink. I will see to it that your requests are fulfilled. And I will fetch some of your own garments to you. It pains me to see you dressed in clothing fit only for a farm laborer. You were always so careful of your appearance before."

Loki grimaced slightly. "You make me sound as bad as Fandral," he complained.

"Never say so, Brother!" Thor protested. "In your place, Fandral would have been weeping for a comb by now."

This reflection on Fandral's character was so accurate that Loki could not keep a reluctant grin from stretching his lips, and Thor wore an identical smile. They gazed at one another, and in that instant they were boys again, sharing in a secret jest. Then the veil of blood and betrayal fell between them once more. Loki's grin turned gruesome, and the answering smile on Thor's face died away. They stared at each other for another moment, and then each turned away.

"I will make certain that you receive the items you requested," Thor said gruffly, stepping back toward the door.

Loki merely nodded his grudging thanks.

Thor opened the cell door, and this time Loki almost welcomed the immobilizing spell. The fog which momentarily clouded his mind seemed like a reprieve from his unpleasant reflections.

* * *

Tony huffed out a curse as he tossed the cell phone onto his work bench. The phone went skittering across the table and then fell off the other side with a clatter. It was the phone he had been given by Phil Coulson for making secure calls to S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters, not one of his Stark phones. He treated his own technology with more respect. He glanced at the phone briefly to make sure it wasn't in pieces, then shrugged and left it on the floor.

In retrospect, it might not have been the best idea to contact Nick Fury right after pulling an all-nighter in his lab. Tony was still thinking in equations, so his communication skills weren't at their best right now. Plus, he could probably use an hour or two of sleep, not to mention a shower and a shave. But hey, at least he had waited to make his call until a respectable time of morning instead of calling at 3:00 a.m. or something. On the other hand, Fury was probably awake at 3:00 a.m. Tony wasn't sure that the director actually needed sleep, or food, or any of the things normal humans needed to survive.

Fury had seemed even more cagey and less impressed with Tony than usual this morning, but he had listened to Tony's request. As Tony had expected, the lure of a protection against future mental attacks was just too tempting for Fury to pass up, even though he was clearly reluctant to let Tony borrow the scepter. At first, Tony had been afraid that Fury would insist that the tests take place at a S.H.I.E.L.D. site, but Tony had finally convinced Fury to let him run his tests at Stark Tower. But as he had anticipated, he would be sharing his penthouse with several S.H.I.E.L.D. agents for as long as the scepter remained at Stark Tower. Tony thought he could handle that as long as the agents stayed out of his lab.

"Success, JARVIS," Tony announced. "We will soon become the proud – temporary – owners of Loki's shiny doomstick."

"So I gathered, sir," JARVIS answered. "Congratulations."

Tony yawned and rubbed at his eyes, then shook himself all over like a wet dog. "Okay, then. Back to work. Is there any coffee left in the pot?"

"You finished the last of it half an hour ago, so I started a fresh pot for you." JARVIS said.

"JARVIS, you are the wind beneath my wings."

"Thank you, sir," JARVIS replied with just a touch of sarcasm.

Tony grabbed his mug from the corner of his work bench and made his way over the automatic coffee machine. As he was refilling the mug and repressing another yawn, JARVIS's voice came again, sounding almost confused.

"Sir, I am detecting an unidentified source of electromagnetic energy near the windows."

"Unidentified? What do you mean?" Tony glanced toward the windows, but there was nothing there.

"I mean that the energy doesn't appear to have been generated by anything. It is simply there." There was a slight pause, and then JARVIS added, "It appears to be drawing heat from the surrounding air."

Tony set his mug down next to the coffee machine. An idea flitted through his mind, but it seemed slightly too far-fetched to be voiced aloud just yet. "By the windows, you said?"

"It is moving toward the work bench," JARVIS informed. "Now it is in the general vicinity of the S.H.I.E.L.D. phone, sir."

Tony walked toward the spot where the cell phone still rested on the floor. Suddenly, between one step and the next, he was enveloped within a pocket of freezing cold air. "Shit!" he gasped, taking a hasty step backwards until the air temperature warmed up a bit.

He shivered, and not just from that momentary contact with the cold air. He could swear that he felt the presence of another person close by. "Okay, JARVIS, what do you know about ghosts?"

"Among other things, that they are not believed to exist by reputable scientists," JARVIS said dryly.

"Yeah, but neither is the Norse pantheon," Tony muttered. "Is it still there?"

"It is approximately one meter ahead of you, sir."

Still right next to the cell phone. Tony could easily imagine the disapproving expression on Coulson's face as he saw how Tony had treated the S.H.I.E.L.D. phone.

The hairs on the back of Tony's neck rose, and he had the extremely uncomfortable sensation that he was being stared at. He shot a quick look around the room to assure himself that there was no one else around. Then he uttered a short, slightly manic laugh. "Agent Coulson, I presume?" There was no reply, of course, but the feeling that he was not alone increased. Tony swallowed, wondering once against how this had become his life. Chatting with gods and ghosts, preparing for the end of the world… the weirdest part was how strangely normal it was all becoming.

"Okay, yes, _mea culpa _about the phone," Tony said, raising his hands in gesture of surrender. "I'll be gentle with it from now on, I promise. Please don't go all _Poltergeist_ on my ass." He edged closer. "Don't freeze me out, okay? I'm just going to pick that up."

He didn't feel the cold air this time as he walked forward, so he figured the ghost must have moved away. He bent down to pick up the abused cell phone and tucked it into the back pocket of his jeans. "There. See? It's fine. No harm done."

"Sir, the entity is moving toward the main console," JARVIS informed him.

"The entity has a name, JARVIS. Don't make him mad. We don't want any angry spooks in our lab."

"My apologies."

Tony glanced over at the console. A holograph of his mind-control shield device hovered in midair. The design looked rather like an upside down light bulb which glowed with the same blue light as the arch reactor. "You like that?" Tony asked, following the ghost toward the console. "It's just an early concept. I might go with more of a teardrop design." He reached out and flicked the image of the bulb so that it rotated in the air. "I'm planning to have a prototype ready by the time S.H.I.E.L.D. delivers the scepter in a couple days. You can tell Loki to check back in about forty-eight hours or so, earth time. Not sure how that translates to Asgard time."

There was a momentary brush of chill air against Tony's left arm, and he side stepped hastily. "Careful, there. You're seriously like an iceberg. Or you're, like, in the middle of an iceberg, or something."

"Would it help if I turned up the thermostat, sir?" JARVIS asked.

"Probably won't make a difference. This is the supernatural we're dealing with, after all," Tony replied. He glanced over in the general direction that the cold blast had come from.

It turned out that talking to someone he couldn't see or hear was a bit more awkward than Tony had expected. Carrying on a conversation by himself should have been fun, but only if he could have seen or heard his audience's reactions. Tony cleared his throat, wishing he could at least see the look on Coulson's face. Not that Coulson had more than a handful of expressions. Right now he probably looked bored and vaguely amused, like a tolerant adult listening with only half an ear to the prattling of a hyperactive child. He wore that expression a lot when he was around Tony.

Once he had that image fixed in his mind, Tony felt a bit better. He reached out to give the glowing bulb another flick to send it spinning again, and then he strolled around the display, activating and manipulating various individual components of the device. "So, if you're really here," Tony mused, "And if you really are Phil Coulson – and you'd better be, because otherwise I'm calling an exorcist – then does that mean Loki was right about you? You can jump from place to place at will? Because if so, that's pretty cool. You can go anywhere. See anyone you wanted. Hey," he said, pointing in the ghost's general direction, "You could go to Portland and see your…"

Then he let his voice trail off, because that was a terrible suggestion, and he was an idiot. Coulson's cellist had probably moved on by now. And even if she hadn't, even if she was pining after him (which seemed unlikely, because it had sounded like the relationship was still at an early stage before Coulson's death), then what could Coulson possibly gain by seeing her again? He couldn't be with her. He couldn't even talk to her. "Sorry," Tony muttered. "Scrap that idea. Moving on. Loki said something about powerful ghosts who could interact with the world. You should practice that. I mean, you're energy, right? Maybe you could–"

"Sir," JARVIS interrupted. "There is a Ms. Leighton here to see you. She is in the living room."

"Yeah?" Tony rubbed his stubbly chin and gave a noncommittal grunt. He wasn't necessarily sorry for the interruption, because this whole ghostly visitation thing was not exactly comfortable, and he wouldn't mind seeing the attractive blond again, either. The only problem was that he really wasn't fit to be seen by anybody at the moment. "Ask what she wants. Only, you know, in a tactful way."

"Of course, sir," JARVIS said, in a tone that clearly conveyed his offense at the suggestion that his manners were not uniformly impeccable. Which they were, of course, to everyone but Tony.

"She says she's here to pick up some documents that she gave you yesterday," JARVIS added a minute later.

"Oh, right. I was supposed to sign those." Tony yawned and ran his fingers through his hair a few times in an attempt to smooth it. It was probably sticking out in every direction. "Okay, guess I better head down there. You kids talk amongst yourselves 'til I get back."

Tony slipped out of his private lab and made his way to the elevator at the end of the hallway. As he walked, he tried to smooth out the front of his rumpled gray t-shirt, but it was a lost cause. There was no way he was going to make himself look presentable in the next few minutes before he had to greet Teresa. She would just have to take him as she found him. After all, it had worked for Pepper. Until it hadn't.

When he stepped out of the elevator on the penthouse floor, the first thing he saw was Teresa, standing over the pile of colored glass on the living room floor with a perplexed expression on her face. She turned at the sound of the elevator doors opening and lifted an eyebrow at Tony. "How did this happen? Are those bullet holes in the wall?" she asked. If not for that British accent, she would have sounded exactly like Pepper.

"I was just doing a little redecorating," Tony said, stepping out of the elevator.

"Right," said Teresa, glancing back down at the glass, then back at Tony. Her lips twitched slightly. "I'll just call someone up to clear this away and patch the wall, shall I?"

Tony waved a hand vaguely. "Don't bother. I've got a cleaning service coming tomorrow. Or maybe the day after. I forget which day it is."

"It's Wednesday," Teresa said helpfully.

"Fantastic. I love Wednesday." Tony headed toward the bar. "Can I get you a drink, Ms. Leighton?"

Teresa shot one more bemused look at the remains of the light fixture, then she followed him to the bar. "It's ten o'clock in the morning."

"Your point?" Tony asked, reaching up to one of the shelves on the back of the bar for a bottle of bourbon whiskey. It seemed like a better way to start off the day than scotch.

Teresa chuckled and braced both hands on the other side of the bar, leaning forward a bit. Tony turned back to the bar and reached under it for a glass. He paused before pouring out the whiskey, taking a moment to admire the picture Teresa presented across from him.

She was dressed in a military-inspired forest green skirt suit. She looked a bit like she belonged on a parade ground somewhere, except for those impressive high heels she was wearing. Steve Rogers probably would have appreciated the style. Tony certainly appreciated it. The color of the suit brought out the green of Teresa's eyes. For some reason, her eyes made him think of Loki's eyes. Which was odd, really, because their eyes were nothing alike. Loki's eyes were sharp, like cut gems. They had edges. Her eyes were soft green, like moss or smooth jade. They were… strangely mesmerizing.

"Mr. Stark?" Teresa said. She sounded amused.

Tony blinked. How long had he been standing there, staring at her like a dork? "I'm sorry, did you say something?"

Teresa chuckled again. She really did have a beautiful laugh. It was like the auditory equivalent to a warm beam of sunlight. "I said I'll pass on the drink, thank you. I'm actually here to pick up the documents I gave you yesterday."

Tony grunted and ducked his head as he poured the whiskey. She must have noticed the guilty expression he was trying to hide, because she added, "I'm going to take a wild guess that you haven't signed them yet."

"It won't take me a minute," Tony promised. "I just have to, um, figure out where I put them. They're somewhere in this room, at least."

"Well, it's a rather large room, so we'd better start looking," Teresa commented, taking a sweeping look around the room. Tony just grunted again and took a sip of whiskey. He assumed that by "we," she really meant "I," so he stayed put behind the bar.

A few minutes later, Teresa located the folder of documents under an art book on a low table situated near the front windows. Tony wasn't entirely sure how the folder got under that particular book. He couldn't remember having actually glanced at that book, let alone picked it up, since Pepper put it on that table months ago. He must had slipped the folder under it sometime yesterday in a subconscious effort to hide it from himself.

Teresa must have come to the same conclusion, because she was looking decidedly reproving as she approached the bar once more. This time she walked around behind the bar, pausing right beside him and dropping the folder on the counter in front of him. She produced a pen from an inner jacket pocket and set it beside the folder. "There you go, Mr. Stark. And I didn't even have to hand you anything."

"How convenient," Tony said dryly. He put his glass down and opened the folder. It appeared to contain mostly contracts written in impenetrable legalese. Yup, he was definitely signing these without reading them.

As he flicked through the pages and signed each document, Teresa leaned casually against the bar at his elbow and looked on. He could feel her presence like a nagging lure which tried to draw his eyes away from the contracts in front of him. Standing this close to her, he could smell her perfume. It was fresh and a little spicy, nothing like the sweet florals he had somehow expected her to wear. It was actually a really distracting scent. Untamed, mysterious, maybe even a little dangerous. Impossible to ignore.

After signing the last document, Tony closed the folder and turned to face her. Her height made it necessary for him to look up to meet her eyes, but he didn't mind that. There was an odd expression on her face. Amused, but also calculating. She did not immediately reach out to retrieve the folder or her pen, so he assumed that she didn't intend to leave quite yet. He was about to renew his offer of a drink, but she spoke first.

"You look tired, Mr. Stark," she said very softly. There was a lilting cadence to her voice now that he found strangely soothing. She spoke slowly, putting emphasis on each word as if every one of them was important. Tony found himself listening to the sound and rhythm of her voice rather than the words themselves. "Your eyes are bloodshot. Have you been unable to sleep? Or have you been burning the midnight oil, putting your brilliant mind to work? You should take better care of yourself."

Teresa stepped closer, so that they were almost touching. Tony was lost in her green eyes now; he couldn't have looked away if he tried. "You should let someone else take care of you," she whispered, reaching out to brush her fingertips down his arm.

Tony swallowed thickly. His head was buzzing, and his muscles didn't seem to be working quite right. His body felt heavy and numb, except for his heart, which was beating at a frenetic pace. Something about this situation seemed a bit off, but he couldn't seem to figure it out through the fog in his mind. He drew in a deep breath, but it didn't help to clear his head. Instead, he simply took in more of her spicy, alluring fragrance.

"That's right, Stark," Teresa said, still in that low voice. "Just breath in and out, slowly. Let go. Let me help you."

Tony swayed, feeling increasingly disoriented. His only anchor seemed to be her eyes, so beautifully and impossibly green. He couldn't turn away, couldn't even blink.

And then suddenly, without warning, Tony was struck by a stunning rush of arctic air. It was like being thrown into glacially-cold water. It sent a shock through his whole body and brought his mind into abrupt, painful clarity. "_Jesus fuck!_" he shouted, stumbling backwards. "Holy shit!"

Teresa's mouth dropped open in astonishment as she stared at him. "M-Mr. Stark? Are you okay?"

Tony gasped and ran his trembling fingers through his hair. He could still feel the lingering chill in his bones. It was more than just cold, he realized. It was like touching death itself. It was a spine-tingling reminder of mortality.

He looked up to find that Teresa was still staring at him. She didn't just look surprised. She looked worried, almost afraid. "I'm sorry," he said helplessly, wondering how he was supposed to explain to her that he had just come in contact with a ghost. Yes, and what the hell was that ghost doing in his living room now? Had the creeper been listening in on the whole conversation?

And come to think of it, what had the conversation been about? Tony blinked, trying to recall what Teresa had been saying right before he had been touched by Coulson's deathly-cold aura. Something about how tired he looked? He couldn't remember exactly, but he thought it was something like that. And instead of answering like a normal human being, he had squawked obscenities and staggered around like a lunatic. Perfect.

"I really am sorry about that," Tony said weakly. "Honestly, I'm not usually this, uh, twitchy."

Teresa seemed to have recovered from most of her shock by this time, but she was still eyeing him warily. She reached out to pick up the folder and her pen from the bar. "I think I'd better let you get some rest, Mr. Stark. I need to get back to work anyway."

"Uh, sure," said Tony awkwardly. "Thanks for dropping by."

Teresa nodded, all business now. She made her way across the room to the elevators, her heels clicking sharply on the floor. It was a dignified retreat. A graceful escape from a maniac.

When his guest had disappeared behind the closing elevator doors, Tony let out a groan. "What the _fuck_ was that?" he demanded. "Seriously, Coulson, did I invite you to listen in on my private conversation and scare the hell out of me and my employee? Not. Cool."

There was a brief pause, and then JARVIS said almost tentatively, "He's gone now, sir."

"Great. Thanks a lot for the warning about him being here in the first place," Tony grumbled sarcastically.

"Sir, he had not been in the room very long when he approached you. And even if he had been, I assumed you wouldn't wish me to announce the presence of a ghost within Ms. Leighton's hearing."

"No, I guess not," Tony admitted. He heaved a sigh, and then rubbed at his eyes. Teresa was right; he _was_ tired. Maybe it wouldn't be such a bad idea to get a few hours of sleep. But first, he was going to take a shower. A very _hot_ shower.

* * *

**Note that I'll be working overtime at my job for the next few weeks, so the next update probably won't come out for at least two weeks. For updates on the progress of this fic, as well as general Avengers-related spam, please visit me on Tumblr. (My Tumblr user name is also SeekingIdlwild.)**

**Anyway, thanks for reading! Please leave a review to let me know how I'm doing. **


	6. Chapter 6: Situation Normal

**I didn't want to wait any longer to post this chapter, so it hasn't been reviewed by a beta reader. Please let me know if you notice any editing mistakes.**

* * *

Loki plucked at the front of his tunic and stared down at it with an expression of dissatisfaction. The garment was constructed of panels of fine black and green cloth, delicately embroidered with gold thread. It was raiment worthy of a prince, certainly, but it hung from his slim shoulders like a sack**.** The pants were made of the softest black suede, but they did not cling to the wiry muscles of his legs as they had once done. Only the polished black boots, embellished with gleaming brass studs, still fit him as they ought. As for the rest, it looked as if he had borrowed someone else's clothing.

"I am like a scarecrow," he muttered, dismayed to realize how thin he had become. How could he have been so careless with his own health at such a time as this? But he knew how. He had not felt hunger or thirst since his defeat on Midgard. It was as if that blow had temporarily dampened his will to survive. Or maybe it had just made him realize that survival was potentially worse than the alternative. He had sulked in the darkness of this cell for months, growing steadily less sane as the weeks passed by. Then Coulson had come and brought Loki back to himself.

And curse it, where _was_ Coulson?

Loki reached down to pick up the final article of clothing from the floor. It was a lightweight leather jerkin, usually his only nod to the cold weather which sent other Asgardians huddling under their furs and woolen knits. He slipped on the jerkin and belted it securely around his thin waist. Then he ran his fingers through his hair, which was still a bit damp from his recent bath and just beginning to curl at the tips.

There. He was fed, bathed, and now he was dressed in fine clothing. He should feel more like himself now. And yet he could not don the mantle of Loki, Prince of Asgard as easily as he could don his old garments. He was not sure who he was now, but he would never again be that young god who had once worn these clothes and dwelled in the house of Odin as if he had a right to be there. As if he had any rightful claim upon the name of Odinson. As if he were more than a visitor in this realm he had considered his home.

"That's definitely an improvement," a familiar voice commented.

Loki looked up quickly to find himself looking directly into the eyes of Agent Coulson. The ghost stood just a few feet in front of him, smiling slightly. He looked tired but triumphant. Loki hadn't realized that ghosts could get tired. What had Coulson been doing all this time?

"Where have you been?" Loki demanded.

Coulson's smile widened and the expression of triumph in his eyes increased. "What, did you miss me?"

Loki _had_ missed him, but he would rather be pierced by a thousand blades than admit it. He decided that his best defense against the ghost's presumption was a wordless glare.

Coulson just chuckled. He seemed to be in an extraordinarily good mood for someone who had been dead for six months. "I've been practicing teleportation," he said, apparently trying to hide how pleased he was with himself and failing miserably. "So far I've found it easier to focus on jumping to specific people instead of specific places."

"It's a form of phasing, not teleportation," Loki corrected him irritably, mostly in an effort to establish his superiority over the inexplicably cheerful ghost. "Teleportation implies a physical form traveling between two points," he explained, using both hands to make illustrative gestures in the air. "Phasing usually refers to non-corporeal forms moving through solid objects, but it can apply to astral travel as well. You teleport to places, not to people. Phasing doesn't have the same limitations because there is no physical form to be damaged during travel. You don't have to create a tear in reality; you move through reality, only faster than perception."

Coulson looked interested rather than abashed by this little lesson in forms of magical travel. "Well, then I've been practicing _phasing_," he amended amicably. "It was nice to finally go wherever I wanted. I decided to check in on a few of my colleagues."

Experiencing an unexpected stab of jealousy at that news, Loki responded by showing his teeth in a spiteful grin. "Ah, excellent," he purred. "Did you give Barton my love?"

A slight frown flickered over Coulson's features momentarily, but he refused to rise to Loki's bait. "It must have slipped my mind," he answered dryly. His good mood seemed to have finally abated. Loki felt a malicious sense of accomplishment.

"Yes, congratulations," Coulson said, noticing Loki's self-satisfied expression. "You haven't lost your touch for nastiness. Should I just go now, or do you want to hear about my visit to Stark?"

Loki stiffened. "You saw Stark?" he asked sharply.

"Uh-huh. I thought that would get your attention." Coulson looked annoyingly pleased with himself again. "I actually had a nice little chat with him. He didn't hear a word I said, of course, but he was talking enough for both of us anyway."

"He knew you were there?"

"JARVIS – that's Stark's artificial intelligence," Coulson paused to explain.

"I am acquainted with him."

"Right, I guess you would be, since you tried to take over the world from Stark Tower," Coulson mused. "I bet he gave you some trouble."

"Just a touch," Loki admitted. He recalled his initial meeting with the disembodied voice in Stark Tower. That had been an interesting conversation. JARVIS had been understandably reluctant to allow Loki access to the large arc reactor powering the tower. Loki had been able to temporarily take the AI offline with a combination of magic and hacking knowledge gleaned from Agent Barton, but somehow the entity had been able to turn himself back on over and over again. With each reboot, JARVIS had attempted to shut down the reactor. If Loki had not previously felt a degree of respect for Stark's genius before that moment, he certainly would have done so afterward.

Coulson smiled again, as if he could guess what was going through Loki's mind. "So, anyway, JARVIS detected me," he continued. "Or rather, he detected a source of electromagnetic energy. Stark decided it must be me after getting close to me." Coulson's brows drew together slightly and he looked down at himself, as if studying his own appearance would reveal to him the nature of his existence. "Apparently I'm very cold."

Loki lifted his brows at that. He realized that he had not yet attempted to reach out to the ghost. Suddenly curious, he stretched out his hand so that, had Coulson been solid, Loki's fingertips would just brush against his shoulder. He practically had to concentrate to notice the chill surrounding the ghost.

Coulson's eyes widened. "That's strange," he murmured, staring down at Loki's outstretched hand. "Stark could hardly stand to get near me. He said I was like an iceberg, but you don't seem to be affected."

Loki withdrew his hand abruptly. He backed away, endeavoring to keep his expression neutral. "I don't mind the cold," he muttered.

Coulson shot him a questioning look, but Loki ignored it. He set to pacing his cell instead, working off his momentary discomfort with activity, and resolutely turning his thoughts back toward his mission. "Did Stark mention the scepter?" he asked.

Coulson was still watching him curiously. "Yes. He got Director Fury to agree to let him test it in his tower lab. S.H.I.E.L.D. will be delivering it to him soon. Today, perhaps. I haven't been keeping very good track of the time." There was a pause, and then he asked suddenly, "What's wrong?"

"What's _wrong_?" Loki snapped, spinning on his heels to face the ghost once more. "Do you mean besides the fact that there is an impossibly powerful creature prepared to take control of my mind at the earliest opportunity? Besides the fact that I've been trapped alone in his black box for months? Besides the fact that I have allowed myself to become so weak that I cannot sustain my astral form for any significant period of time?"

Coulson blinked. "Yeah, besides that."

Loki's eyes narrowed on the ghost. He stood there stiffly for a few moments, clenching and unclenching his hands at his sides. He would not mention his discomfort over the unpleasant reminder of his true heritage, but that was hardly the only thing troubling him at present. "You left without warning," he muttered finally. Grudgingly. "I did not know if you were coming back."

"You _did_ miss me," Coulson said. His tone was surprised rather than gloating as Loki would have expected.

"Only because I might still have need of your assistance." Loki felt he should make that very clear. There was no need for the ghost to think that Loki was becoming _fond_ of him or anything equally ridiculous. "We are allied in this effort to protect our realms, are we not?"

Coulson looked as if he was fighting to hide a smile. "I was under the impression that we were trying to protect _you_."

"It amounts to the same thing."

Coulson gave up trying to hide his amusement. "You know, I think you may have Stark beat in the ego department."

"I beg your pardon?"

Coulson waved the question off, still smiling. "I won't promise to stick around here all the time, but I'll keep you apprised of my movements. Or give you some warning before I leave, at least." Then Coulson's smile died, and his expression turned serious. "But I need a promise from you in return."

Loki tilted his head curiously.

"Don't ever try to use Barton to get a rise out of me again," Coulson said quietly.

They stared at each other for a few seconds. Loki pursed his lips, then nodded his head in silent agreement.

Coulson's stern expression relaxed. "Good. Now, there's one more thing I should probably mention about my visit to Stark."

"There's more? Has he encountered any problems with his design?"

"Not that I know of," Coulson reassured him. "It's Stark himself who seems to be having problems. I phased into his living room while he was talking to a woman. I didn't recognize her, but he mentioned that she was one of his employees. They were standing close, and Stark looked… sick."

"Sick?" Loki repeated sharply, stepping forward. "Sick how?"

"Um, kind of dazed," Coulson described, looking vaguely perplexed. "Pale. Wobbly on his feet. The woman seemed to be trying to help him, but I couldn't hear what she was whispering. The whole situation seemed strange, so I got closer. Close enough to startle him with the cold air I seem to carry around with me. He looked more like himself after that, but the woman left as fast as she could. She was acting like she had… Well," he said, with a rueful expression that was part smile and part grimace. "Like she had seen a ghost. She might have felt the cold too when I got close to Stark. I'm not sure."

Loki experienced an inexplicable jolt of annoyance at the idea of some human woman hovering close to Stark and whispering to him. It didn't matter whether she was Stark's employee or not. Stark had a quite a reputation where women were concerned. Loki had recently spent a mere three days on Midgard, but it had been long enough to hear of Stark's notoriety in that respect. "Good riddance, if that is so," he muttered. "Stark doesn't need distractions right now."

"What Stark _needs_ is sleep," Coulson countered. "He looks like he hasn't slept for a month, which probably isn't far from the truth, knowing him."

Loki frowned, musing with dissatisfaction over the frailty of mortals. "I will visit him soon and assure myself that he is taking proper rest and nourishment. Time is of the essence, but I suppose I cannot allow him to make himself ill."

"Well, if you can persuade him to take care of himself, you'll succeed where the rest of his friends have failed," Coulson commented dryly.

* * *

Meanwhile, a showered, shaved, and semi-rested Tony Stark was making his way through one of the lower floors of Stark Tower. He skirted around a flock of besuited marketing drones and turned a corner, entering a long, wide hallway. At the end of the hallway was the door to his own office, but that wasn't where he was headed. Instead he aimed for the office belonging to the CEO's assistant. The door was open, so he caught the edge of the doorframe with one hand and swung himself into the room. "Good morning Pep… uh… You're not Pepper."

Sitting behind the painfully tidy desk, looking as perfectly put together as ever, sat Teresa Leighton. She turned from her computer screen to shoot Tony an ironical smile. "Your powers of observation leave me breathless, Mr. Stark."

Pepper really shouldn't be allowed to have an assistant. It was like having two Peppers around, and as much as Tony appreciated Pepper's biting wit, two was one too many.

"Look," said Tony, suddenly feeling much more tired than he had a few seconds ago, "It might be common knowledge that my memory is selective at best, but my sense of direction is impeccable. This is definitely Pepper's office."

"It _was_ Pepper's office," Teresa corrected him sweetly. "It is now my office. Pepper's office is at the end of the hall."

"Wait, the big one? With all the windows?"

"That's the one," Teresa confirmed.

"But that's _my_ office!"

Teresa's lips twitched into a small, knowing smile. She was doing that silent laughter thing again, which always simultaneously affronted and intrigued him. Tony found himself stepping further into the room as if magnetically attracted to that smile.

"Well, I suppose you'll have to take that up with Pepper," Teresa said. "We didn't know you'd be needing an office when we moved things around a couple months ago."

"This happened _months_ ago?" Tony said. "And no one thought I might need to know this?"

"I think Pepper tried to call you several times. And she sent you an email about it."

That was plausible. For a while there, he had been deleting emails and voicemail messages en masse without checking any them.

"Fine," Tony muttered. "I guess I'll go check out Pepper's fancy new office then." But he didn't leave immediately. He was still busy watching Teresa's expression. He was fascinated by the changes it underwent within the space of a few short seconds; first amused, then vaguely irritated, then slightly guilty.

Finally, Teresa said, "Mr. Stark, before you go, I want to apologize for what happened a few days ago."

Tony just blinked at her. That was about the last thing he had expected her to say. She wasn't the one who had doused him with the equivalent of a cold shower while they were sharing what he thought had been an intimate moment.

Teresa obviously noticed his bewildered expression, because she continued hastily, "I came on a bit too strong, I think. I misread the situation completely. Please forgive me. I'll make every effort to keep our interactions more professional from now on."

"Wait, what?" Tony asked. Then he realized how it must have looked to her, when he had jerked away from her and spewed profanities. She had apparently made some sort of move – one which he couldn't remember very clearly, for some reason – and he had acted completely disgusted by her. "No, no, no, you don't understand. It's just that I-" He paused, trying to think up a plausible lie to explain his bizarre behavior. "I was just tired, like you said."

Teresa didn't look impressed by the explanation. She just smiled politely. "Well, I hope you've been sleeping better since then."

"Yeah, totally," Tony said, waving a hand vaguely as if that would add conviction to his words. "Sorry about the miscommunication. If I gave you the impression that I wasn't interested, then that's my bad. Let me make it up to you. Have dinner with me tomorrow night? I promise, no freak-outs this time."

Teresa's expression turned calculating. Tony could practically see the wheel spinning in her head. Why an offered date with Tony Stark required this much consideration, Tony wasn't entirely sure. However, his ego had taken enough hits recently that he didn't have quite his usual level of confidence, and he knew that his charm was a bit rusty too.

Then Teresa offered him another one of those polite, cold smiles. "I think I'll have to decline. As I said, I think it would be best to keep things between us entirely professional. Will that be all, Mr. Stark?"

Tony was so glad that Rhodey wasn't here to witness his rejection. He would be positively crowing right now. Pepper probably wouldn't find it as amusing. Instead, she would just be fussing at Tony for trying to sleep with her assistant. Either way, he was grateful at least that his humiliation went unobserved by any third parties.

"That will be all, Ms. Leighton," Tony said, and retreated with what little dignity remained to him.

Tony continued down the hallway toward his old office, hoping he didn't look too much like a puppy with its tail between its legs. He found the office door suspiciously closed. Tony stood before it and stared at the polished brass knob, pondering his next course of action. A closed office door in Stark Tower usually meant that the occupant of the office in question was making an important call, was in a meeting, or was otherwise engaged. Under normal conditions, the general policy was for all employees to keep their doors open to at least give the impression of a communal, supportive work environment.

He should knock. He should definitely knock. Pepper's door wouldn't be closed unless she was doing something important and didn't want to be disturbed. On the other hand, to knock on the door would be to admit from the outset that the office wasn't his anymore, and Tony wasn't prepared to do that. He had already suffered one humiliation this morning with becoming meekness. This time, he was going to be obnoxious for the sheer hell of it. He opened the door and walked in.

And then he immediately stopped dead, because Pepper was standing behind her desk with her arms wrapped around a tall man in a gray suit who was kissing her as if his life depended on it. At the sound of the door opening, the couple broke apart. Anger kindled in Pepper's eyes as she looked towards the doorway, but then the anger was replaced with a sort of fatalistic amusement. "Of course. Of course, it's you," she sighed.

"Well… this isn't awkward or anything," Tony said unhelpfully.

The man at Pepper's side shot Tony an assessing look which reminded him forcibly of the way Agent Coulson had often looked at him in the past. He was unfairly attractive, with light brown hair, blue eyes, a light dusting of stubble along his jaw, and the physique of a quarterback. Actually, "attractive" didn't really cut it. Disgustingly handsome was closer to the truth.

"Tony," Pepper said before Tony had a chance to make even more of an ass of himself, "as you have probably guessed, this is Brent. This isn't _exactly_ how I had planned to introduce you two, but… well, Bent, say 'hi' to Tony."

"Hi, Tony," Brent said, smiling. His posture was relaxed, and there was a lazy amusement in his eyes that clearly attested to the fact that he was _enjoying_ this situation. What the hell? As far as Tony knew, this was the first time they had ever met. Why did he feel like this guy was enjoying some sort of joke at his expense? And not a very nice joke, either.

"Hi, Brent," Tony replied, pronouncing the name with the same intonation of distaste that he would use in speaking about slugs, tapeworms, or virulent intestinal diseases.

Naturally, Pepper caught on immediately that this was not going to be the start of a beautiful friendship. She reached over and gave Brent's arm a light pat. "I'm going to have to pass on lunch," she murmured. "I'll give you call tonight. We'll set something up for tomorrow, okay?"

Brent's eyes softened as he turned to look down at Pepper. The change which overcame his expression was quite striking, actually. A split second ago, he had looking at Tony with a degree of amusement that was bordering on malevolent, but now he was gazing down at Pepper as if the world revolved around her and Tony wasn't even in the room. "If you're sure," he said reluctantly.

"I'm sure," Pepper said. "I probably need to handle this."

Brent nodded, then bent forward to brush a light kiss across her forehead. "Okay. I'll bring you back something to eat, okay?"

Pepper blushed slightly and smiled. Her fingers twitched where they still rested on his sleeve. "Thanks. That sounds great."

"No, that's okay," Tony said as he wandered over to the opposite side of the office to adjust a picture frame on the wall that hadn't actually been askew. "Don't mind me. I'll just hang out over here. This isn't weird at all."

"Don't worry, Stark, I'm leaving," Brent called back over his shoulder. He offered Pepper a parting smile and then made his way toward the office door, which still stood wide open as Tony had left it.

"Get the door on your way out, won't you?" Tony said.

Brent snorted. "Of course. We don't want anyone walking in on you, or anything." The door clicked shut behind him as he left.

For a moment, Pepper and Tony just stared at one another across the room. "So…" Tony said, itching to break the awkward silence somehow, "He seems nice…"

Pepper flung up both hands in an abortive gesture. "Don't Tony," she said earnestly, looking tired and guarded. "Don't even start. Just keep your thoughts to yourself for once, okay? I like him. I don't want have to stand here and defend my feelings while you make snide comments."

Tony felt an uncomfortable twinge of guilt. "I didn't–"

"He's good to me. He's considerate. Do you even realize how incredible that is?" Pepper interrupted. "He treats me like I'm-"

"-the only person in the room," Tony finished for her. "Yeah, I got that."

Pepper blinked at him, clearly nonplussed by his comprehension. "Exactly," she murmured.

Tony shrugged. He stuffed his hands into the front pockets of his jeans and strolled towards her. "Like I was trying to say," he said, "I didn't come here to trash your boyfriend. I just wanted to warn you that the tower is getting some visitors tonight, around nine o'clock. Everyone should be out by then, right?"

To her credit, Pepper changed gears pretty quickly. Within the space of a few seconds her expression had gone from confused, to reluctantly touched, to wary once again. "Yes…" she said slowly, drawing out the word. "It's Friday, so the tower will probably empty out by six o'clock. Except for security, of course." Her brows drew together. "What sort of visitors are we talking about?"

"Uh…" Tony reached up to scratch his chin. "Just some S.H.I.E.L.D. agents."

"_What?_"

"Just, like, a half dozen or so," Tony said in a soothing tone. "Don't worry, they won't get under your feet at all. They'll all be upstairs, in the penthouse and the private lab. Well, not _in_ my lab. God forbid. But, you know, standing guard outside."

"Tony," Pepper said, slapping both palms down on top of her desk for emphasis, "_What_ is going on? Why are half a dozen S.H.I.E.L.D. agents taking up residence in my tower?"

"_Your_ tower?" Tony echoed. "Uh, last I checked, it had _my_ name on the side of it. And while we're on the subject, this office belongs to–"

"_Tony_," Pepper interrupted. She sounded a little desperate now, so Tony shut up. Her expression was haunted, and her face was much paler than it had been a few moments ago. "Last time a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent visited this tower, it meant the world was under attack. Phil died, Manhattan got completely trashed, and I nearly lost you. _Please_ tell me what is going on."

Tony stared at her helplessly. The fear in her eyes was unmistakable. Fear for _him_, he realized. "I'm working on something for S.H.I.E.L.D.," he said slowly. Pepper opened her mouth to interject, but he continued before she could get the words out. "That's all I can say right now. It's just research and development. Lab work, not field work."

"You don't know the difference!" Pepper protested. "What is it you're always saying? 'You have to run before you can walk?' Let's just stick to walking for a while, okay? Baby steps, if you don't mind."

Tony chuckled. "Okay, baby steps. And don't worry, I will _definitely_ warn you ahead of time if the world is about to end."

"That's so comforting," Pepper muttered.

"It would be more comforting if you kept your phone on you at all times. Ah ha, there it is," Tony said, watching Pepper reach into an inner pocket of her blazer and pull out her Stark phone. She leaned forward across the desk so she could wave it around in front of his face.

"Yes, here it is. The ringtone is on the highest setting, _and_ it's set to vibrate." She demonstrated the settings so that he could see them for himself, then she tucked the phone back into her pocket. "Now you can stop needling me about that phone call. That's not a mistake I'll ever make again."

"No, probably not," Tony said, sobering up a bit at the thought. Would he still call her now, he wondered, if he found himself in the same position as he had last summer? Not that he could really take credit for calling Pepper while en route to toss a missile through an alien portal. That had been JARVIS's idea. Tony thought that if he found himself in the same position again, he'd probably just spend his last moments in companionable silence with JARVIS. That had worked out pretty well last time.

"So, this project you're working on," Pepper said, breaking into his morbid train of thought, "It's not going to keep you from going to Chicago next weekend, right?"

Tony stared at her blankly. "Chicago?"

Pepper let out an exasperated sigh and pinched the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger. "Yes, Tony," she said with exaggerated patience, "Chicago. We're unveiling the second Stark Tower, remember? We decided not to throw a big party when _this_ tower was completed because we weren't one hundred percent sure everything would work out the way we planned with the arc reactor."

"_I_ was sure."

"Well, yes, so was I, but that didn't mean there wouldn't be a few kinks left to hammer out," she amended. "But now we know what we're doing, and we need to make a big deal about the next building."

"You expect me to stop in the middle of saving the world–"

"You just said it's–"

"Lab work, I know, but it's important, time-critical lab work," Tony said. "And you expect me to just drop it so I can attend a party?"

Pepper met his eyes unflinchingly and nodded. "Yes. That's what I expect from you. You're still the face of this company, and you need to be visible right now. This is world-changing technology; you don't need me to tell you that. Stark Industries is saving the world too. Besides, you promised."

Tony didn't remember promising. But if Pepper said he had promised, then he probably had. Tony drew in a deep breath and let it out in an exaggerated sigh. "Okay," he conceded. "But only for a few hours. I fly in, I smile for the cameras, I shake a few hands, dance a few dances, and then I'm out of there."

"That's all I'm asking."

"Right. Good. Okay."

They stared at one another again for a few moments. Pepper was still in her stern, responsible Assistant CEO mode. Tony was feeling uncomfortably like a school child getting stared down by a wrathful teacher. He cleared his throat and looked around the office. It was tidy. Tasteful. Very Pepper. "So… I like what you've done with _my office_," he said, because he liked to live dangerously.

"Tony?"

"Hm?"

"Go away."

"Fine," Tony grumbled. "But it's _still_ my office."

* * *

It was midnight when Loki made an appearance in Tony's lab. By that time, the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents had long since arrived, carrying with them a long black case which looked like it ought to contain a bass guitar instead of an alien weapon.

There were five agents in all, and as Tony had suspected, they clearly intended to move into his penthouse and guard his private lab for as long as the scepter was in residence. That was fine with Tony, but he made certain to set a few ground rules from the beginning. Chief among these rules was that none of the agents was allowed to set foot within his lab under _any_ conditions. Since he made it his policy not to trust S.H.I.E.L.D. agents as far as he could throw them (without his suit, at least; he could probably toss them pretty far while wearing his armor, and wouldn't_ that_ be deeply satisfying), he had made a few upgrades to his security system to enforce his decree. S.H.I.E.L.D. would eventually get around these measures; they always did. But it would take them a while, which bought him some time.

Tony was alone in his lab, running some initial tests on the glittering scepter which now rested on a stand on one of his work benches, when he heard Loki's voice behind him.

"I trust I did not keep you waiting long."

Either he was feeling more rested and relaxed than usual, or he was just getting used to Loki's habit of sneaking up on him, but this time Tony managed not to jump at the sound of that voice. "Hey, I wasn't waiting on you for-" Tony started to say as he turned around, but then his voice cut out mid-sentence.

Loki was standing casually in the center of the lab, looking around at the bots, consoles and equipment with evident interest. He stood upright but relaxed, legs apart and hands clasped loosely at the small of his back. Although his expression, posture, and mannerisms were unchanged, Tony felt like he was looking at a completely different person from the unkempt prisoner in homespuns who had visited him on two previous occasions. In fact, he had never seen Loki like this. Last summer, Loki had looked impressive, but he had also appeared gaunt and sunken-eyed. Beautiful, but battered. Now his pale skin glowed with new health. His long, black hair was sleek and carefully combed into place. He was dressed in beautiful green and black clothing, embroidered with intricate designs in golden thread. Yes, the clothes were loose on him – he was still too thin – but he looked every inch the prince. Every inch the god. He was striking, and unearthly, and Tony suddenly had the strange sensation of slowly sinking into dark, uncharted depths.

Apparently oblivious to the uncomfortable and surreal direction of Tony's thoughts, Loki lifted an inquiring eyebrow. "Something wrong?" he asked.

"Nice threads," Tony said in a neutral tone.

Loki followed the direction of Tony's gaze and looked down. "Oh, my garments," he said dismissively. "Yes. It was time."

Tony had no idea what that was supposed to mean, but by now he had spent considerably longer than was strictly necessary staring at Loki, so it was time to introduce a diversion. He would worry about sorting out this new complication at a later time. Preferably much later. Never. Never would work great.

"So! The scepter," Tony said hastily, turning his back on Loki and making a sweeping motion toward the scepter with both of his outstretched hands. "Here it is. As sparkly and evil as ever. Bring back any fond memories?"

"_No_," Loki replied. Something about his tone was strange. He sounded both surprised and indignant.

Tony slowly turned back towards the god. The look on Loki's face was unmistakably one of consternation, and… was that fear? He was even paler than usual, and his eyes had blown wide. He wasn't just surprised. He was dumbstruck.

"No?" Tony repeated, experiencing the first sickening waves of foreboding. "Loki?"

At the sound of Tony's voice, Loki's gaze jerked away from the scepter. He met Tony's eyes, and Tony almost staggered under the weight of the rage and desperation he found there. "Is this a _trick_?" Loki hissed.

"You tell me," Tony said, in as even a tone as he could muster under the circumstances.

"That is _not_ the scepter!" Loki practically screamed.

Well, fuck.

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**Thank you for reading! Reviews are greatly appreciated.**


	7. Chapter 7: All Fucked Up

**I was thinking of calling this chapter "Loki'd," but I chickened out and went for the more obvious title. Besides, Loki's not the one causing problems this time.**

**This is a slightly shorter chapter than usual, and once again, it has not been beta'd. I wanted to go ahead and post it as soon as possible. Please let me know if you see typos or errors.**

* * *

For a few moments, Loki couldn't even breathe through the emotions pressing down like a physical weight upon his chest. The fear and the fury, the desperation and betrayal, they clogged his throat and thickened his tongue. A ghost of memory, of mental and physical torments, of haunting laughter filled his mind and he saw pure red. He charged forward, preparing to seize the human by the neck once again, warm skin and pulsing blood vessels under his twitching fingertips, and fling him through another window. Or maybe this time he would end everything with a clean, cruel twist of his hands. The sound of snapping bone would fill the room, and then peace would follow.

"Loki!" The sound of Stark's voice pierced his thoughts and brought him out of his bloody daze. Loki found himself hovering over the human, his own hands stretched out to grip him by the throat. He could not truly touch Stark in this form. He felt only the faintest buzz of energy like the tingle of static electricity where his incorporeal fingers brushed against Stark's skin. He blinked, swallowed, and lowered his hands slowly. He raised his head and looked into Stark's golden-brown eyes, which were wide, confused, and more than a little intimidated.

"Loki?" Stark repeated, making his name sound like a question this time. His voice was strangely soft and surprisingly un-Stark-like.

Loki took a step back, shaking his head to clear the last echoes of Thanos's laughter from his mind. He looked over at the fake scepter again, and Stark followed his gaze.

"Okay… I'm lost now," Stark said. "Clearly you're upset, but I honestly have no idea what you mean."

"I mean _exactly_ what I said," Loki snarled. "That is not the scepter!"

Stark held up both hands in a placating gesture that just made Loki itch to get his hands around the human's throat once more. "Okay, but how do you know that? How can you be sure of that when you're not even really here?"

"Do you really think I can't tell the difference between a Tesseract shard and an energy crystal?" Loki demanded. "What sort of fool do you take me for? I can tell you with absolute certainty that the staff on your table is a copy. It is a weapon of strong magical properties, yes, and it gives off an energy similar to that of the scepter, but it has never been influenced by the Overmaster's power."

He paused, studying Stark's face. The human had turned to look at him again, and his expression was one of bewilderment rapidly turning to dread. He had not expected Loki's revelation. He knew nothing of this substitution. And how should he, after all? Energy crystals were not items commonly found on earth, and no human had the arcane knowledge to craft an object of this kind. Loki looked over at the fake scepter again. It was beautiful, intricate, and powerful in its own right. The glowing blue energy crystal was one of the finest specimens of its kind that Loki had ever seen. The weapon was clearly the work of dwarven or possibly elven smiths. Yes, there was some treachery involved. But it was not human treachery. Not this time.

"You didn't know," Loki said softly.

"I still don't!" Stark said, and for the first time since Loki's outburst, the human sounded more like his usual loud-mouthed self. His voice did have an uncharacteristic edge of panic to it, though. "That _has_ to be the scepter. I mean, Fury wouldn't fake me out by sending a copy. How does that make any sense? He wants to get his hand on mind-control deflection technology as badly as you do, and he knows that the scepter is an important part of that. I wouldn't usually put it past him to pull a stunt like this, but there's no _point_ to it!"

"I didn't say that director Fury was the instigator of this deception," Loki murmured. "I don't believe that your S.H.I.E.L.D. was aware that a substitution had been made." He walked over toward the table where the counterfeit scepter rested on a stand. He wished he could reach out and feel the metal under his fingertips, but he did not need to touch it to know that the workmanship was of superb quality. Even in his astral form, he could feel the tingle of power from within the blue energy crystal. He was certain that Thanos had never handled that crystal; the energy in it was pure and untainted. So much energy. It was a weapon fit for a true master of magic, and Loki had already decided that he would take it for himself when he escaped from his cell. He would make some minor modifications to the design and use his magic to change the tint of the crystal from blue to green. But even while he formulated these plans, he was well aware of the disastrous problem that the missing scepter posed.

"This is not a human creation," Loki said, still examining the scepter which he was already starting to think of as his own. "It is too finely crafted, and the materials do not come from your realm."

"You realize that suggests that an Asgardian made the switch, don't you?" Stark asked, coming up beside Loki. "Maybe your father decided the real scepter wouldn't be safe in human hands."

"He is not my father," Loki said reflexively, and then immediately wished he could take back the words. Stark was looking at him curiously, and Loki had no desire to delve into _that_ subject. He continued hastily, "The scepter is heavily tainted by the Overmaster's magic; it would be unwise to keep it and the Tesseract in close proximity to each other. The Allfather knows that, and I don't think he would take the risk. But he might have done so, if he truly did not trust your S.H.I.E.L.D.'s ability to keep the scepter safe. I will question Thor when I return to my body."

"That will just make him suspicious, won't it?" Stark asked.

Loki shot him an irritated look. "That is indeed a concern," he said sarcastically, "because nothing about my previous behavior would lead him to suspect me of plotting mischief."

Stark actually cracked a smile at that, despite the tense nature of their discussion. It was just a quirk of his lips, but the expression warmed his eyes in a way which Loki found both inviting and strangely unsettling.

"Point," Stark acknowledged with a slight inclination of his head. He reached out to run his fingertips over the length of the scepter, avoiding the blade. "Okay, so you're going to go ask big brother if Odin's hiding the real scepter somewhere, but you're pretty sure the answer will be no." Stark let his hand drop and lifted his eyes to Loki's own once more. "That leaves us with two really big problems. The first one being that I don't know how much progress I can make on my design with nothing to go on besides the data I collected from the scepter on the Helicarrier. The second, of course, is the fact that someone out there is running around with the real scepter, and we have no fucking idea who it is or what they plan to do with it."

"Anyone who wields the scepter is in league with the Overmaster, whether by choice or by coercion," Loki said. "Therefore, you can be certain that whatever the thief plans to do with the scepter, it will involve either the enslavement or the complete annihilation of your race."

"Oh, okay. I'm glad we cleared _that_ up," Stark replied. His eyes had gone a little wide, and his voice was a little too breathless to convey his usual level of bored sarcasm convincingly. He was visibly shaken, and Loki could entirely sympathize with him. Although Loki had himself under control now, the panic which had sent him into a frenzy a few minutes ago had not abated yet.

But Stark had his own ways of dealing with panic. Loki watched as the human crossed to holographic image which hovered over a table positioned close by the scepter's table. Stark began to manipulate the dials and graphs which appeared on the screen. Loki did not fully comprehend what he was watching on the screen, but after a while it became apparent to him that Stark was comparing two similar – but not identical – sets of data. "Is that the information you gathered from the scepter on the Helicarrier?" Loki asked.

"Yeah. I'm comparing them now. If I isolate the variations in the energy readings from the two scepters, it will give me a jumping-off point for my design, at least," Stark murmured without looking up from the screen.

"Be certain to incorporate the new element you created into your design," Loki said.

"What, vibranium?" Stark's head jerked up. "Coulson told you about that, huh? Why do you think it's important?"

"Because the reactor which powers this building did not interfere with the scepter's power," Loki replied. "From what Coulson told me, I assume that the only reactor which contains that element is the one in your chest. It follows that the element played an important part in deflecting my attempt to take control of you."

Stark leaned his hip against the table in front of him and folded his arms across his chest, apparently thinking this over. "Okay, that makes sense," he said finally. "That stuff's not exactly easy to synthesize, but I can make a trip out to Malibu. My lab out there is already equipped for it." He leveled a serious look at Loki. "You do realize that unless we get our hands on that scepter, we don't have a way to test out the prototype, right?"

"Then I will have to trust in your reputed genius and simply take the risk," Loki said quietly, meeting Stark's eyes steadily.

Stark's brows rose slightly. "I might be a genius, but I'm not omniscient. I don't have enough data to even begin to calculate all the ways that this could go wrong. And according to you, if it _does_ go wrong, then you'll get mind-controlled by the scariest fucker in outer space."

"Which will eventually happen anyway!" Loki snarled, approaching the human and stopping directly in front of him, crowding him against the table. "Don't you see?" he said, lowering his voice. "I have no other options. Better to seize upon even a fragile hope of freedom than to cower in my prison and wait for the enemy to come for me."

Stark showed no signs of intimidation at Loki's close proximity this time. He looked up at the god with a thoughtful gleam in his brown eyes. "And if it doesn't work? If this Overmaster guy takes over and you go back to being the bad guy? What then?"

"You assemble your Avengers and defeat me once more," Loki replied promptly. "Only this time, once I am on the ground, you do not allow me to rise again."

Stark's eyes darkened. Loki watched the human's expression, but he could understand nothing of the emotions he watched briefly flit across it. "I think I like the version where you become a friendly better."

Loki liked it better too, although "friendly" was probably a bit of a stretch. "Not-currently-trying-to-kill-each-other" was probably a more accurate description of their present alliance. Stark did appear to be treating him with a surprising degree of trust at the moment, though. Probably because he knew that Loki could not actually hurt him in this form. But there were displays and holographs and plenty of interesting tech around that Loki could examine if he wanted to, yet Stark seemed almost comfortable with Loki's presence here in his sacred workspace. Perhaps Stark was just resigned to the fact that he could not keep the god out of his lab even if he wanted to. Or perhaps Stark truly saw this collaboration effort as a stepping stone that could lead to some sort of future concord between them. Loki ruthlessly squashed the tiny flare of hope that arose at that thought. No good could come of it.

"Hey!" Stark said, calling Loki's attention back from where it had gone wandering. Loki blinked once and focused on the human, who was looking at him with an expression that was clearly intended to be encouraging. "Don't start freaking out again. I'm going to make this work. Success is the only option, right?"

"I am not 'freaking out,'" Loki protested, disgruntled.

Stark shrugged. "Okay. You just had that 'deer-in-the-headlights' look again."

Loki wasn't entirely sure what that was supposed to mean – something to do with deer and motor vehicles, which struck him as a bad combination – but it clearly wasn't meant to be flattering. "Why must you keep comparing me to a deer?"

Stark frowned at that, clearly trying to remember when he had previously likened Loki to a deer. When he remembered, he flashed a wide grin. Loki blinked again, startled by the warmth and humor in that expression. It transformed Stark's entire face and made him look ten years younger. No, it made him look like a boy – an impish little boy. A perfect kindred spirit to the mischief-loving child that Loki himself had once been, long before bitterness had hardened him.

Stark lifted his hands to his forehead and crooked his index fingers into imitations of little horns. He waggled them at Loki. "You know why."

Loki huffed out a soft breath. No one took the horns seriously.

"Go talk to Thor," Stark said, waving him off. "Then come back and help me with this prototype. I need your input; magic is not exactly my area of expertise."

Loki reluctantly took a step back. He wasn't looking forward to another conversation with Thor. "Very well," he murmured. "I will return soon."

Stark nodded absently and turned back to his examination of the information on his holographic screen. Loki kept his gaze on the human until the room blurred and faded from view. Then his soul was called back across the stretches of space that separated Asgard from Midgard, and he awoke within his cell.

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Someone was making noises in the kitchen when Teresa arrived at her apartment that evening. She only paused for a moment in the act of hanging up the coat, listening to the sounds of cabinet doors slamming shut and cardboard boxes being torn open. A slight frown marred the flawlessness of her features. She looked around the living room and spotted what she was looking for; a huge double-bladed axe as tall as she was herself was propped against one wall of the small room. Teresa pursed her lips thoughtfully, then glanced at the doorway which led to the kitchen. There was no doubt that her imposing house guest was currently in the act of demolishing her food stores and making a considerable mess in the process, and it was to be hoped that he was not causing any unnecessary degree of destruction beyond that. Later, she would make him clean up whatever mess he had created. He would do that for her. He always did as she bid him. But for now, she had more pressing matters to attend to.

Teresa bypassed the kitchen door and entered the bedroom. It, too, was a small room. She peered around it with a look of dissatisfaction, and she had to remind herself for at least the hundredth time that it was merely a temporary arrangement. Better times were coming. Not even bothering to turn on the light, she knelt beside her bed and reached under it, feeling around until her fingers came in contact with a metal handle. She pulled on the handle and drew out a long, flat, rectangular case of plastic and metal. There was a little keypad on the top of the case, and Teresa hastily punched in a series of numbers. The latch clicked, and she eased the case open.

The scepter lay within, glittering in the city lights which streamed in from the bedroom window. Teresa slid her fingers under the long golden handle and lifted the scepter out of its case. The metal was cold under her fingertips, but she stroked it anyway, smiling serenely at her treasure. Then, as she had been expecting, the blue Tesseract shard flashed suddenly. Her bedroom seemed to dissolve from view, replaced by a barren, rocky landscape which appeared to be suspended in the darkness of space. The only light came from distant stars. It was quiet, but not a restful quiet. It was a quiet that waited, like the pause for breath before speech.

Teresa curled her fingers tightly around the staff and watched the scene unfold. Her own form, clad all in green but for her black boots and vambraces, flickered into view in the center of a smooth stone ledge. A dark creature emerged from around a corner and approached the simulated version of herself. She knew this creature only as the Other. She did not know or care if he had another name. He was gray and ugly, and he wore a hooded cloak that concealed half his features. She hated him. He was a necessary evil, a go-between for her true master. Someday, she would not have to trouble herself with this sniveling little monster. Someday, she would stand before Thanos himself, to receive his praise for beautiful destruction she had wrought in his name.

The Other came to a stop before her projected image, looking her over. "Greetings, Amora of Asgard," he whisper hoarsely. "What have you to report? Have you learned more of the invention which foiled Loki's attempt to take control of the human called Iron Man?"

"A great deal more," Amora replied. "But not quite enough to carry my plan into action. My research is hindered by Stark's security measures. He has an artificial intelligence program which observes everything that happens within the tower. I must be careful to keep my research concealed from the program, and from Stark himself. However, I believe there is more to be learned from other sources outside Stark Tower. I have learned from my thralls that the human organization called S.H.I.E.L.D. has extensive information on the arc reactor technology. I will soon have access to those files."

"Very well, but can you not use your own magic to twist Stark to your will, even though he is immune to the power of the scepter?" The Other asked impatiently.

Amora frowned, recalling the strange incident which occurred in Stark's penthouse a few days earlier. "I have made the attempt," she admitted. "It seemed to be working, but then suddenly the magic lost its hold on Stark, and he came out of his trance. I dare not make another attempt for fear that he will become suspicious. It is possible that his technology deflects all magic, not just that of the scepter. Or perhaps there was another force at work. I could not tell."

"That is unfortunate." The Other's tone sounded both accusing and slightly smug. Amora had to make an effort not to show any visible signs of affront. "You cannot kill him without drawing attention to yourself. You will have to let him live for the present. Be careful to stay out of his path."

Amora smiled at the creature, showing her teeth. "When I am ready, Skurge the Executioner will provide sufficient distraction to keep Stark from hindering me," she said.

"The half-giant?" the Other rasped. "You called him a blunt weapon; powerful, but imprecise."

"This assignment will exactly suit his skill set. He will revel in it," Amora promised. "Do not worry about Stark. He cannot stop me. Soon I will have the tools I need to begin my master's work in this realm, and nothing else will matter."

"Do not forget your place!" the Other warned, stepping closer and peering into her face with a malevolent leer. "You are our master's eyes and ears in that realm, nothing more! Do not think to take his glory for your own!"

"I'll be sure to keep that in mind," Amora replied coldly, adjusting her grip on the scepter.

"See that you do!" the creature hissed, and with those words, the scene flickered and then suddenly disappeared. Amora was in her human guise again, in small room in a cramped apartment somewhere in New York City.

Amora let out a soft breath of irritation and then looked down at the scepter within her grasp. She reached up to stroke the side of the blade, contemplating the pleasing mental image of the Other's head being cleaved from his shoulders. Then she sighed, shrugged, and set the scepter back into its case. It was time to find out what Skurge was doing to her kitchen.

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	8. Chapter 8: Scatter What Remains

**Chapter title comes from "Speed the Collapse" by Metric.**

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Rain pattered on the roof and dripped down the window panes, but within this cozy room it was warm and comfortable. A soft glow emanated from the gas fireplace, and lit candles provided just enough added illumination. Two people, a man and a woman, were curled up together on a sofa before the fire, sipping wine and talking in hushed voices. They looked perfectly relaxed, content in each other's company. The woman was smiling. She tilted her head back and laughed softly, and firelight reflected in her warm brown eyes.

Coulson stood before a set of bay windows and watched the scene. There was something soothing about the composition of it: the fire, the candles, the happy couple, the gentle, continuous rainfall. It was peace. It was everything he ever could have hoped for her. It was everything he never could have given her.

Shortly after his arrival, he had noticed a framed photo of himself which occupied a position of prominence on a book case near the windows. The photograph stood right next to a book of Japanese poetry that he had purchased for her birthday last year. The sight of it warmed him, but it also stung like a knife prick to the soul. He had not known she cared that much. If he had, he never would have put off visiting her after she had moved to Portland. He would not have waited until it was too late to tell her the truth. The truth about himself, the thrilling and hazardous adventure that was his life, and his feelings for her. He had died before he could reveal any of it, and yet she honored his memory anyway.

He wondered how she had found out about his death, and what she had been told. Not the truth, certainly. Most likely she thought he was one of the random casualties during the battle in Manhattan. He hoped she had not grieved too much. She was made for laughter, not tears. She was laughing again now, presumably at whatever her companion had just whispered to her. Coulson couldn't help smiling at that bright sound.

He was still smiling when he phased away a few minutes later, leaving the couple to enjoy their evening in private. She was happy. That was – _must_ be – enough for him.

Over the years, Loki had come to recognize that Thor had two distinct battle-ready stances. Loki had most often witnessed the cocky, loose-limbed stance Thor adopted when he was enjoying himself. His fighting position was open and seemingly vulnerable, as if he was deliberately daring his enemies to try to get a hit in. He would hold Mjölnir in a loose grip and smirk at his opponents, his eyes radiant with the joy of battle.

But then there was the closed stance, when Thor would stiffen his limbs and make every small movement count. His expression would become shuttered; his eyes would turn serious, his mouth forming into a grim line. When Thor's pleasure in battle deserted him, that was when he became most dangerous. When the stakes were at their highest, when his emotions were most overwhelmingly engaged, his face and bearing took on a guarded quality that was usually foreign to his nature.

Loki was observing the latter stance now. Although Thor was not carrying Mjölnir, he might as well have been for how watchful and ready he looked. His shoulders were tense, his eyes were wary, his jaw was set. He was gazing at Loki as if he expected him to make an attack at any second. As if he was just anticipating the inevitable moment when Loki would cause him pain.

"Why did you tell the guard to summon me?" Thor demanded. "I thought my company was irksome to you."

Loki was in his customary position on the floor, knees spread and black against the wall. He looked up at Thor, rolling his head languidly against the wall behind him as if his neck could not be bothered to support its weight. "I am bored," he announced.

Thor's eyes darkened with frustration. "What appalling news," he said. "I will be sure to inform our father. He will be most distressed to hear of it."

Loki raised his brows. "Sarcasm does not become you, Thor. And speaking of your father, what does he expect me to do in here all day, when he has forbidden me any form of occupation? I have nothing to do but to lose myself in reflection."

"Perhaps that is his design," Thor suggested.

Loki smiled slowly. He gave his head a light shake of disapproval and dropped his gaze to the hands which he held primly clasped in his lap. "He is unwise, then," he said quietly. He waited a few beats while listening for Thor's reaction. The other god stood stiff and still, waiting for him to continue. Good. Loki knew he had to be careful in how he went about his line of questioning. He could not be open about his true motives to Thor, but he must also take care not to alienate Thor so much that he left before Loki could get the answers he needed.

"I have recently found myself wondering just how far the Allfather is willing to trust your dear mortal allies," Loki said. "He has never thought much of humans, has he?"

He heard a rustle of cloth and leather as Thor shifted slightly above him. "When he last interacted with them, they were not an impressive race," he pointed out. He sounded a little defensive, as if Loki's words had touched upon a point which gave Thor some uneasiness.

"You think they have improved since then?" Loki asked, curious in spite of himself. He glanced up at Thor.

Thor's grim demeanor showed signs of thaw at the introduction of a favorite topic. "Greatly," he said, nodding. "They are misguided in many ways, but there are still lessons to be learned from them."

The image of warm brown eyes and a cocky smile flashed in Loki's mind, along with the words, _Success is the only option, right?_ So self-assured. So determined. Unbeatable, because he didn't know how to accept defeat. Loki blinked, clearing Stark's face from his mind, but the echoes of his voice remained.

"You might be right," Loki admitted softly, drawing his brows together in thought. Then, when he noticed Thor giving him a strange look, Loki continued hastily, "But does the Allfather agree with you? That is my question."

"I believe that he is cautiously favorable towards them, as a whole," Thor said, his expression growing wary once again.

Loki drew up his knees to his chest and casually rested his arms on them. His brought his fingers together in an almost meditative position. "When we left earth," he said, "you saw fit to leave the scepter in the care of the humans. I wonder if Odin was pleased with that decision. I wonder if he allowed the humans to keep their new toy."

The wariness in Thor's eyes hardened into disgust. His folded his powerful arms across his chest and glared down at Loki, as if he expected him to be intimidated. Loki met his eyes squarely, straightening his own shoulders in response to Thor's posturing. All right, perhaps Thor _did_ look rather intimidating at the moment. At least Loki was accustomed to dealing with Thor even in his most combative moods.

"Is this what you wanted to discuss?" Thor demanded angrily. "Has your subtlety deserted you, that you must ask outright after the fate of your beloved scepter? And after all these months, are you still fixated upon your ill-conceived schemes to take control of Midgard?"

"I said nothing of my schemes," Loki said in a low, measured voice. "I spoke only of the scepter. A dangerous artifact, an object of great power, which _you_ left in mortal hands."

"I did what I thought best," Thor growled, "and Father approved my decision. I do not regret it. My most pressing concern was to keep the scepter out of _your_ hands. It is a vile thing. It is twisted, and you are twisted when you wield its power. I will not have you near it." He stepped closer to Loki, until he was looming directly over him. "Hear this, Loki. I know your head is teaming with new plots and deceptions. You will not rest until you have brought true ruin upon yourself and those who still love you. I see it in your eyes. I see your determination and your bitterness. But you will not succeed. At every turn, I will be there to stop you."

Loki braced his back against the wall to support himself as he rose to his feet. He faced Thor, mirroring his cold stare. "You think you know me?" he whispered. "You think you can see my thoughts reflected in my eyes? You are still not as wise as you think you are. You have no insight into the workings of my mind. You never have, and you never will. You could spend the rest of your days trying to comprehend my plans and motivations, but you will never succeed. I will not fit into any of the clever little boxes you construct in your efforts to define me."

Thor closed his eyes and bowed his head. His shoulders slumped as a wave of weariness passed over his face. "This is pointless," he muttered.

"Only because you speak instead of listen," Loki said. He reached out with both hands to shove Thor away, and the other god made no effort to resist. Thor stepped back, giving Loki the space he suddenly longed for. "How many have fallen by your hand over the course of your heroic career, Thor?" Loki asked, beginning to slowly pace along the wall of his cell. "How much destruction have you left in _your_ wake?"

"I will not apologize for the victories I have won," Thor said.

"But you expect an apology from me. I must conclude that remorse is only appropriate in defeat. Your battles were no nobler than mine; the only difference was my lack of victory." Loki hissed. "That is why you choose to interpret my every word and deed in the most disgraceful light."

This was all wrong. This was not how the conversation was supposed to go. Something had torn open inside of him and words were flowing from his lips like blood from a gaping wound. Loki snapped his teeth together, trapping the rest of his bitter rant behind them.

Thor was staring at him with a mixture of anger, hurt, and longing. "Loki," he said, his voice rough and almost broken. "How else am I to interpret them? How can you explain your actions? Tell me you did it all for a reason. Tell me you had no choice. Tell me any lie you choose. Give me a reason to hope that you are not completely lost."

Thor's eyes were wet with unshed tears. Loki had to turn his head away, to resolutely refuse to meet those eyes. He suddenly felt weak and wrung out. His head throbbed as if he had been weeping for hours, but his eyes were dry.

"You tried to enslave a realm that was under my protection," Thor said in a low, pained voice. "Your army laid waste to a great city. You murdered a friend before my eyes while I was helpless to intervene. How am I to interpret these actions? How am I to absolve you of guilt?"

Loki turned to smile mirthlessly at him. "It cannot be done," he said simply.

They looked helplessly at one another as silence stretched between them. Neither one of them knew how to cross the divide that separated them. It was possible that neither of them even wanted to make the attempt. All Loki wanted was the freedom to mourn for a brother who had never truly existed. Thor probably wished to go back to mourning the version of Loki who had fallen from the Bifrost. But they were each trapped with the living, breathing reality of the other. This was no bittersweet sense of loss but a searing, self-sustaining torment.

Thor finally broke the silence and turned away. He made his way toward the cell door, but Loki called after him. "You referred to Agent Coulson, I think."

Thor paused, his back stiffening. "I did," he said without bothering to turn his head.

"You called him your friend. Did you know him well?" Loki asked.

Thor's hands formed into fists at his sides, then relaxed. He turned, pinning Loki with a cold stare. "No," he said. "I met him only a few times, and not always under the best of circumstances. But I know that he was a good man. He had the mind of a strategist and the heart of a warrior. He had-"

"Conviction," Loki murmured.

"Yes," Thor agreed, looking slightly surprised. He watched Loki's expression curiously.

Loki glanced down at his nails. "Convictions can be dangerous things," he said.

A pause ensued, and then Loki was surprised by a soft, rueful chuckle from Thor. "You should know," Thor said. "It was the power of conviction that defeated you in the end."

Loki considered this. "You may be right," he admitted finally. "I certainly underestimated the power of the humans' desperation."

"It is called faith, Loki," Thor said. "I find that mortals are uncommonly good at it."

A voice repeated in Loki's mind, _I'm going to make this work_. _Success is the only option, right?_

"Yes, they are," he agreed softly.

"I have learned by their example," Thor said in a low voice. Loki lifted his head to find Thor staring at him with an intensity that would have caused a lesser man than Loki to break out in a cold sweat.

But Loki, who was accustomed to Thor's ways, merely lifted a brow at him. "Meaning?"

"I have not given up on you yet," Thor said simply. Then his expression softened, and he smiled sadly. His eyes crinkled a little at the corners, even while they glistened with the evidence of his pain. "I promised that I would not. Not ever. I will not be forsworn."

With that, he left the cell. The heavy metal door clanged shut behind him, and then the echoes of his footsteps trailed down the hallway. Soon Loki was left in complete silence.

It was just as well that Thor had not given him the opportunity to respond to those parting words. Loki was too tired and too hampered by inconvenient emotions to have replied with anything but the blatant, pitiful truth. _I don't want you to give up. I hate you. I hate everything that you are. But if you ever turn your back on me completely, I will be utterly undone. And I hate you for that most of all._

"Loki… why do you do this to yourself?" asked a soft voice from a few paces away.

Loki spun on his heels and glared at the ghost who stood unobtrusively in a corner of the cell, his hands folded before him. Agent Coulson stared back at him calmly, but his usual air of serenity was noticeably absent. He looked both weary and saddened.

"How long have you been present?" Loki snarled at him. "How much did you overhear?"

Coulson gave one of his signature noncommittal shrugs which appeared to be little more than a slight adjustment of his shoulders. "I've been here a few minutes," he said. "Long enough to gain some insight into your relationship with your brother."

"He is not my-"

"He is," Coulson interrupted, his tone uncharacteristically sharp. "He claims you as a brother, he loves you as a brother, and after everything you've done, he still hasn't given up on you." Coulson shook his head and began to pace the room in a restless manner that was so unlike his usual behavior that Loki found himself staring at the ghost in complete bewilderment.

"Do you know how many people I had in my life who cared about me like that?" Coulson demanded. "I'll tell you. None. Not one. No close relatives, no intimate friends, just one person I loved who is interested in someone else, and another person I _wanted_ to love, but who I never made enough time for. I'll never have the opportunity to change that. I don't get to go back and undo my mistakes and forge a few real, honest-to-god relationships, but maybe _you_ can. You're still alive. You still have time. Whatever you went through that made you so goddamn bitter, not to mention _homicidal_, it isn't worth the agony I saw written all over your face a moment ago."

"_How dare you_–"

"How dare I what? Offer you a little friendly advice from beyond the grave?" Coulson cut in before Loki could finish his sputtered protest. "Take it from a dead man, Loki, your problems are not insurmountable. Do you expect me to feel sympathetic while I'm watching you actively sabotage yourself at every opportunity?"

"I _expect_ you to remain silent about matters that you do not understand!" Loki hissed in reply. "I do not require advice from any mortal, dead or otherwise. All I desire at the moment is to be left in peace."

"If that is what you really want," Coulson said, stopping in the middle of his pacing, "I'll go. You're not exactly pleasant company right now anyway."

And with that, he abruptly faded from view, leaving Loki in sole possession of his prison cell.

Loki closed his eyes and uttered a few well-chosen curses. He sank slowly to the stone floor of his cell and dropped his head into his hands. Then he proceeded to take advantage of his solitude to indulge in a few moments of quiet weakness.

After emerging from Loki's isolated dungeon cell, Thor made his way toward the palace training grounds with single-minded purpose. However, his plan to work through his emotions with heavy exertion was foiled when he was intercepted by Odin. The Allfather took one look at Thor's harassed expression and gave a weary smile. "Walk with me, Thor," he said, holding his hand out to his son, and Thor knew it was an order rather than a suggestion.

Once they were strolling through a part of the palace that could usually be counted upon to be deserted at that time of day, Odin commented, "You have been to visit your brother, I hear."

There was no accusation or reproach in Odin's tone, so Thor did not bother to defend himself. "Yes. He asked one of his guards to summon me, and I was curious to know what he wanted," he explained.

"And what did he want?" Odin asked.

"He was seeking information about the whereabouts of his scepter."

"Ah." Odin nodded slowly, not appearing the least bit surprised by this news.

Thor waited a few minutes. Then, when Odin said nothing further on the subject, he blurted out, "Father, I believe that Loki is plotting something."

The Allfather uttered a soft laugh. It was a strangely light sound, as if something had pleased him. Clearly he did not share in Thor's sense of foreboding. "I have never known a time when Loki was _not_ plotting something. Let him alone."

"But–"

"Let him _alone_," Odin repeated more forcefully. "Trust me in this, Thor."

Thor stopped walking and fixed his father with searching gaze. "You know something, don't you?"

Odin jerked his head in the negative, but there was an anticipatory gleam in his eye. "I have a few shrewd guesses, but none that I choose to speak aloud in case I am wrong. It is immaterial, for neither of us can interfere. Loki must find his own way out of this darkness. He does not want help; he will not accept it from us. I have made too many mistakes throughout his life and I have no intention of making another at this critical time."

Thor frowned, having trouble wrapping his mind around the idea that they could best help Loki through inaction. "But… then what would you have me do?"

"To wait," Odin replied. "And to observe the outcome."

* * *

******Please note that this fic has been discontinued. For an explanation of my reasons for not completing _Haunted_, please visit my Tumblr bog (user name seekingidlewild) and search the "Haunted" tag for my post on the subject.**


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